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NewJeans' Min HeeJin slammed for ‘pedophilic’ comments and sexualization of minors

Min HeeJin allegedly citing exploited child actor Brooke Shields as her muse and emphasizing NewJeans' innocence has fans uncomfortable

Trigger warning: mention of pedophilia

NewJeans is the latest K-pop girl group set to debut under HYBE that had fans excited. From their playful concepts and fun performance teasers, the girl group amassed a huge fan following instantly. Creative director Min HeeJin was further a catalyst in their rise to fame as she has been responsible for several popular comebacks of SHINee, Red Velvet and NCT Dream back when she worked with SM Entertainment. However, with the youngest of the NewJeans members being 14, HeeJin’s comments that fans felt had pedophilic undertones and supposed sexualization of minors in her concepts are making fans uncomfortable.

NewJeans is under HYBE’s subsidiary label ADOR run by Min HeeJin. They became the fourth-gen girl group with the highest first-day pre-orders with 81k copies even beating the likes of aespa and Itzy. Weverse is launching a new version of their app just for the girls’ aesthetics impressing everyone with NewJeans’ influence. But with fans claiming that Min HeeJin’s muse was a 15-year-old Brooke Shields for f(x)'s Krystal when she just turned 18 and working with idols when they were minors like SHINee’s Taemin, NCT’s Jisung and Red Velvet’s Yeri, fans are calling for her removal as the creative director of NewJeans.

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A Knetz pointed out Min HeeJin’s Instagram posts of her alleged office being filled with photos of a young Brooke Shields who was exploited when she was a minor. SHINee fans brought back the time she supposedly sexualised Taemin when he was minor and during his solo debut which made fans uncomfortable. They had shared that HeeJin had not wanted Taemin to work out so that his chest would look like a young boy’s. The way she described hanging out with the youngest NewJeans member Hyein who was 13 commenting on her “innocence” and wanting to “bathe in her refreshing energy” had fans going as far as to call her a pedophile.

Fans also questioned the need for NewJeans' Danielle to dress up as 13-year-old Natalie Portman in ‘Leon’, a movie which is also deemed problematic for sexualising a child actress. Min HeeJin had also given Red Velvet a concept for ‘Red Flavor’ that was reminiscent of 'Lolita' according to fans, a movie which glamorized a pedophilic relationship and was done when Yeri was 17. We also had f(x) fans claiming that she sexualised Sulli and Krystal the year they turned 18 with the girls wearing minis and bodycon dresses while Sulli was given blush on her knees.

‘Disturbingly weird’

Fans are trending Min HeeJin on Twitter and making tweets like, “I need min heejin in JAIL.” Another found her concept for Taemin’s solo debut weird, “This is so disturbingly weird.” One fan observed, “When min heejin left, sm stopped debuting minors btw like does it seem like a coincidence i think not.” Another shared, “This is min heejin (43 years old) talking about hyein (13).” One fan wrote, “Minors should not be debuting into such a toxic industry, especially where child exploitation and ped*philia are fairly common, and min heejin is a whole freak that needs to stay far away from children.”

Another fan added, “Min Heejin creepy and pedophilic as f**k and I need her to stay away from these kids. There is a fine line between art and projection and she's literally projecting whatever weird imagination she has on these kids. Need her gone so bad.” One commented, “I don't think it's appropriate to support them atp like people need to cancel their orders and min heejin needs to be removed from her position.”

One fan posted, “This Min Heejin convo is going to go nowhere because people are still going to buy the groups music and engage with their content. It’s just horrible that this is the system they have to work in and unless there’s a huge push, nothing will really be done.” Another wrote, “Min heejin has been weird and a f**king pedo since day 1 but some ppl kept praising her just bcs she was on sm, she’s sick in the head, it’s so disgusting.” One fan shared, “Min heejin is actually so disgusting and needs to back off of those girls… this is why debuting ANY minor in this harsh industry just leads to the compromise of their safety…”

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