Pledis Entertainment has refuted all claims that SEVENTEEN‘s Kim Mingyu was a bully in middle school.
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On Monday (February 22), a post surfaced online claiming Kim was part of a “group of delinquents” during his time at Burim Middle School. In their post, the anonymous author alleged that the group had exercised some mild violence, such as shoving, although noted that Kim had only “watched” while such situations occurred.
The original poster also claimed that after Kim passed Pledis Entertainment’s audition, he supposedly took her money and used it to pay for the transportation to his training. The post, which was deleted roughly three hours after it was uploaded, also featured an image of a middle school yearbook as proof.
However, Pledis has since stated that these accusations are “completely false and have no basis” after speaking to Kim. “We don’t understand why anyone is making these claims,” a company spokesperson said in a telephone call with news outlet SportsWorldi, as translated by Allkpop.
The company also pointed out that there are discrepancies in the poster’s allegations, noting that the proof in question does not line up with Kim’s time at the school: “[The author’s] middle school graduation album is from a different year than Mingyu’s graduation.”
“[The author] also said that Mingyu was cast when he was in his third year of middle school, but Mingyu has been a Pledis Entertainment trainee since he was in his second year,” Pledis added.