Who is Yoo Eun-seo? Kim Garam had patched up with alleged victim before Le Sserafim debut
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA: It seems that the only known alleged victim Yoo Eun-seo continues to stay in the spotlight due to the constant developments in Kim Garam’s school bullying scandal. However, she was initially not the one who started it. After HYBE announced the members of their new girl group Le Sserafim which included Garam, several anonymous posts came up on April 5 claiming that she was a bully, she was obsessed with sex and drew crude pictures in school and would smoke and drink. After HYBE denied all rumors and took legal action, Kim Garam debuted in Le Sserafim.
Instead of the scandal dying down, it got worse when Yoo Eun-seo’s law firm publicly released its defence against Kim Garam on May 19 with a detailed description of how she was allegedly bullied by the former Le Sserafim star. But the latest update by Kim Garam on her friend’s Instagram shows that the two had actually patched up and were friends before her debut as a K-pop idol. After HYBE dropped the 16-year-old and took her out of Le Sserafim, Garam allegedly spoke up for the first time through an Instagram account.
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Yoo Eun-seo’s side
While there were several rumors of physical assault and crude behavior, the only one that seems to have some truth to it is the situation between Kim Garam and Yoo Eun-seo as both parties including HYBE have addressed it publicly. On May 19, Eun-seo’s law firm Daeryum released a lengthy statement. Yoo Eun-seo was a classmate of Kim Garam. She voluntarily transferred to another school because she was constantly bullied by the former Le Sserafim member and her gang. Due to it, the school violence committee had given Garam a level 5 punishment while Eun-seo had gotten psychological counselling back in 2018. It should be noted that the record of the school violence committee was confirmed by the Ministry of Education, HYBE and Kim Garam.
Eun-seo claimed she was silent on the matter when Garam was about to debut and saw the other baseless rumors against the former idol cropped up with more alleged victims speaking up. She claimed that she was threatened online for making up fake rumors about Kim Garam. She suffered from panic attacks and attempted suicide. The law firm shared they sent a letter to HYBE a month ago on April 20, not wanting compensation but only asking for the truth and an apology but the company ignored it. Eun-seo is currently being treated by a psychiatrist.
Kim Garam’s side
On August 10, Kim Garam allegedly posted her side of the story on Instagram. HYBE acknowledging the posts has fans sure that it was indeed made by the former Le Sserafim member. In the two posts, Garam denied all baseless accusations – she was never violent with anyone, was never forced to transfer due to bullying, never smoked or drank and never bullied anyone. She said that the level 5 punishment that she was given was due to an immature incident where she thought she was being chivalrous by trying to defend a friend. According to her, Yoo Eun-seo took a photo of Garam’s friend in her underwear and spread it on Facebook. They confronted Eun-seo because of it and swore at her in person and online.
According to the school violence committee record that Garam shared, Eun-seo too retaliated by getting her friends to swear at Garam’s group. Garam’s clique had also created a group chat to swear at Eun-seo. Her group also threatened to similarly take a photo of Eun-seo in her underwear and post it online. After Eun-seo apologized and transferred schools, at the new school she spread the rumor that she was bullied by Garam and her clique. They again created a group chat to swear at Eun-seo who also invited seniors to the group. According to the record, Garam was given level 5 punishment for bad-mouthing Eunseo, being involved in the molka incident (sharing of a naked photo), swearing at people in person and online.
The Instagram account also posted screenshots of an alleged chat between Garam and Eun-seo after the incident in 2018. It states that they were in good terms and had patched up but Eun-seo decided to distort the incident because she was jealous of Garam’s K-pop debut. The screenshots include Garam and Eun-seo complimenting each other and calling each other cute.
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