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Woollim slammed for removing Chaewon from website while announcing Golden Child album

'Woollim act like they only have Golden Child in their company,' said a Lovelyz fan

Managing K-pop groups and idols is no cakewalk. But some agencies are seen doing a poorer job of it than others. Fans of groups like Lovelyz, Golden Child, Rocket Punch and Drippin have been unhappy with the way their agency, Woollim Entertainment has been handling their artists. While they have managed iconic groups like Infinite and Epik High in the past, they have been receiving mixed responses from netizens for their recent decisions. While Kwon Eunbi got to have her solo debut, the other IZ*ONE members like Chaewon have been in the background.

After the popular girl group IZ*ONE disbanded leaving fans heartbroken, its members went their different ways. Eunbi and Chaewon are both under Woollim Entertainment. While the agency is doing quite well for Eunbi’s solo comeback, fans are worried about Chaewon’s uncertain future. There were rumors that she would be joining HYBE’s new girl group along with former IZ*ONE member Sakura Miyawaki. Reports suggest that HYBE has signed a contract with Woollim where Chaewon will still be under Woollim but for group promotions, be managed by HYBE.

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Chaewon removed from Woollim's website

And on September 16, Woollim has removed the link to Chaewon’s artist profile from their website. Fans think that this move has confirmed her contract with HYBE. But there have been mixed reactions as some do not want Chaewon to join HYBE since their subsidiary labels haven’t had a good history of managing girl groups. But some fans want to give HYBE the benefit of the doubt as they house successful boy groups like BTS, Seventeen and TXT. Even their recently acquired girl group fromis_9 is doing well with their latest comeback after changing agencies.

Golden Child's back-to-back releases

On the other hand, there has been an uproar from fans of other Woollim groups with the announcement of Golden Child’s comeback with a repackaged album in October. The boy group released their album ‘Game Changer’ a month ago in August. Meanwhile, the other Woollim groups haven’t had a comeback in months. Infinite is on a hiatus since 2019 and it has been a year since Lovelyz’s last comeback. Rocket Punch and Drippin’s last Korean comeback was with a single album in May and June 2021 respectively.

Goldenness (Golden Child’s fandom) are requesting the other groups’ fans not to attack the group but to direct their anger at the agency since they themselves want Golden Child to rest after weeks of tiring promotions. They have also pointed out that the comeback wasn’t the group’s decision but the agency’s.

'So messed up'

Chaewon and Woollim has been trending all morning following the news. Chaewon’s fans made tweets like, “Chaewon please come home i beg we all miss you please show yourself i have a cookie pspspspspssp,” “Whatever it is, i hope chaewon is doing well and that this means we are going to hear from her soon enough. i trust her and im sure if she had a say in this, she definitely knows what she's doing. we can wait for her,” and “Whatever company it is, treat chaewon and sakura properly and managed them well because they deserve it.” “Im actually so mad at wlm right now. not only did they keep us in the dark the whole time, they also cut off any way for us to know how chaewon's doing (or anything about her, really) and what was that profile photoshoot about? to deceive us? to distract us? that's so messed up,” said another.

One user tweeted, “Woollim act like they only have Golden Child in their company. Meanwhile there's Lovelyz, Rocket Punch & Drippin. They also need comeback, especially lovelyz that their contract almost end.” Another fan added, “Vlive will shut down in few months and then what will rocket punch do between each comeback??? nothing! because you can't even provide them some schedule or even make contents of your own group.” “Woollim do you not have other artists????????? game changer came out literally last month???? and a full album at it???? lovelyz last cb was over a year ago, rocket punch and drippin YOUR ROOKIES came back 3+ months ago both with a single album????” posted one user.

Goldenness made posts like, “U can be angry all u wants towards woollim but just stop directing ur hate towards golcha. they’re not the ones making decisions for their comebacks,” “Linus, Ketchy, DREAMIN and whoever it is, normalize blaming WOOLLIM, not GoldenChild…” and “Im just dropping by to say that Golcha needs to rest and Lovelyz needs a comeback. Pls dont be st*pid Woollim.” “So golcha will cb on oct ? ignoring lovelyz ? bitch even rocket punch and drippin are jobless here ? even i'm a ness but totally disagree with this, vce nonstop, boys keep working even the promotion is end okeyyyyyy  but how about the others ??????????????” said a fan.