Spire Entertainment releases video of Omega X member touching former CEO

Social Affairs

Published: 19 Mar. 2024, 14:38 Updated: 19 Mar. 2024, 15:52

Spire Entertainment releases video of Omega X member touching former CEO

Spire Entertainment CEO Hwang Seong-woo, left, reveals a video of Omega X member Lee Hwi-chan groping the agency's former CEO and Hwang's wife Kang Seong-hee during a press conference on Tuesday held in southern Seoul. [YOON SO-YEON]

Spire Entertainment on Tuesday afternoon released a video of Omega X member Lee Hwi-chan groping the agency's former CEO Kang Seong-hee.

The boy band's former agency disclosed surveillance camera footage from July 11, 2022, of the Omega X singer touching Kang's body "against her will."

The footage was allegedly lost until two weeks ago, but was recently restored and will be used as evidence to press charges against the Omega X member for sexual assault, Spire Entertainment said.

Spire Entertainment held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon in southern Seoul "to announce that Spire Entertainment's former CEO Kang is not a criminal but a victim of sexual harassment,” contrary to the boy band’s claim that Kang had molested members in 2022.

The conference was attended by Hwang Seong-woo, Kang's husband and current CEO of Spire Entertainment, and attorney Kim Tae-woo of Jeha Law Firm. Kang, who was reported to the police for sexually harassing and assaulting boy band Omega X members in 2022, did not attend.

On Oct. 22, 2022, one fan uploaded an audio recording on Twitter, currently X, claiming that it was of member Jaehan being yelled at and pushed over by Spire’s Kang during the band’s stay in Los Angeles as a part of its U.S. tour.

Members held a press conference the following month, stating that they had been subject to verbal, physical and sexual violence since November 2021 and that Kang threatened them, saying “there will be no next album” if they refused to abide by her wishes.

The members filed for an injunction on their exclusive contracts with Spire Entertainment, which was approved by the Seoul Eastern District Court on Jan. 11, 2023.

Seven months later, Spire Entertainment accused Omega X of having conspired with its current agency IPQ Entertainment to prematurely end its exclusive contract with Spire to join IPQ, through an act that is referred to as artist tampering.

Kang insists that she was wrongly framed as an abusive CEO and robbed of a boy band that the company invested 10 billion won ($7.5 million) in to put together, while IPQ Entertainment’s CEO Yoon Hye-young argues that Kang’s violence toward members was verified by the court and that IPQ only offered to help save the members afterward.

According to Kang, the members insulted her in order to get her yelling on camera, and the parts where the members provoked her were edited out. She was also accused of sexually harassing the members such as by touching their legs, but she explained that such actions only took place while she was trying to comfort the members when they were having a hard time.

"Despite being the victim, [Kang] had been reluctant to press charges or disclose evidence because she did not want to be the one making the young Omega X members into sex offenders," Spire Entertainment said.

"But the assumptions toward her have escalated to a point where it cannot be overlooked anymore, so she decided to reveal the surveillance camera footage."

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]