soft zone

SM Entertainment has released a statement to announce that the agency will be taking legal action against malicious rumors regarding their artist NCT’s Taeyong.

Hello, this is SM Entertainment.

This is our statement on the content regarding our artist Taeyong that is being spread online.

The individual who has been posting online about Taeyong’s past speech and behavior during middle school has stated that they are an informant stepping up for the victim, and they have been continuously posting unconfirmed one-sided claims and distorted facts.

Taeyong has already sincerely apologized to the victim and provided compensation regarding his wrongdoings of the past. However, the informant continued to make one-sided claims using distorted and exaggerated facts to attack Taeyong. We have been aware of this, but as the informant is a former classmate of Taeyong’s, there were concerns that secondary damage could be inflicted on his friends from middle school and any related people. Taeyong himself has patiently endured the situation out of the concern that his middle school classmates may potentially be harmed.

However, the distorted claims continued to surface and spread, leading to serious damage in the form of invasion of privacy, insults, and defamation on not only Taeyong, but also his family. The situation has reached a point in which we cannot continue to show tolerance to protect our artist.

Therefore, if malicious posts about Taeyong continue to surface, we will no longer overlook them and take strong legal action for defamation against the informant.

Moreover, we will take strong action without lenience regarding the dissemination and expansive reproduction of related unconfirmed content as well as other clearly unlawful acts such as leaving malicious comments about Taeyong and his family.

To avoid any further damage, we ask everyone to halt any illegal acts such as posting or spreading rumors, leaving malicious comments, or invading the privacy of all individuals related to Taeyong’s middle school days, including the informant.

We will continue to take legal action against any illegal acts by strengthening the existing monitoring process and legal measures that we have taken to protect our artists until now.

Thank you.