BBC Documentary Exposes Ugly Brutality in Chat Group: The Biggest Celebrity Was Megastar Seungri

On May 19th, a documentary titled “Burning Sun: Exposing the secret K-pop chat groups”was released by “BBC Eye,”the investigative team behind the popular YouTube channel “BBC News Korea.”

The documentary focuses on the investigation conducted by journalists Park Hyo-sil and Kang Kyung-yoon into the sexual scandal involving well-known K-pop stars.

The paragraph outlines the revelation of the real personalities of seemingly unattainable celebrities, as well as the impact of journalists in exposing the behaviors of the group chat room participants.

In September 2016, Journalist Park Hyo-sil, who was the first to report on the allegations of illegal filming against Jung Joon-young, shared in the documentary that KBS’s lawyer had contacted the ex-girlfriend of Jung Joon-young and warned her about potential severe consequences for making false accusations if there was insufficient evidence. As a result, the victim withdrew her complaint against Jung Joon-young out of fear.

Despite being the key evidence, Jung Joon-young did not submit his phone to the police. Instead, he handed it over to a private forensic company. According to journalist Park, the police opted to request a report from the forensic company rather than conducting a thorough investigation of the phone, leading to a perfunctory conclusion of the case.

Three years later, it was revealed that Jung Joon-young’s chat contents, of which he was previously unaware, had been leaked from a copy of his phone data.

According to journalist Kang Kyung-yoon, who acquired KakaoTalk conversations between members from 2015 to 2016, although the video of the female victim reported in 2016 was not present, there were multiple other videos filmed by Jung Joon-young with different women, some of whom were recognizable.

Kang, the journalist, expressed, “The memories of those KakaoTalk messages still weigh heavily on my heart. I never expected the situation to be this grave.”

One video captured Jung Joon-young encouraging a woman to drink while touching her buttocks, with fellow singer Choi Jong-hoon standing next to him. Another person recording the scene can be heard saying “Jong-hoon, do it again. XX looked so attractive. That kiss earlier”, to which Choi Jong-hoon jokingly responded, “I’d rather not.”

Journalist Kang Kyung-yoon observed that Choi Jong-hoon shared a similar level of sexual drive with Jung Joon-young, but he tended to be submissive in the group’s power dynamics. He typically followed the lead of Seungri, rarely taking the initiative.

According to BBC, Seungri, a megastar from the K-Pop supergroup Big Bang, was the most prominent figure in the chat group. He was known for his successful music career as well as his lavish lifestyle, which he marketed as the “Jay Gatsby of Korea”through slick promotional videos. However, a video showing him mistreating a woman caused widespread outrage in Korea.

After the video was released, viewers voiced their outrage through comments such as “It’s shocking that they were able to leave prison” , “Why aren’t these despicable individuals serving life sentences?” , “They appear to be psychopaths” and “It’s appalling that they continue to hold fan sign events.”

The BBC News TV channel will broadcast the documentary as a series beginning in June. Additionally, the documentary is currently accessible in Korean on the BBC News Korea YouTube channel.