Haknyeon Ju, formerly of The Boyz, has broken his silence on the prostitution allegations that led to his exit from the group and a bitter legal fight with his agency.
The controversy dates back to June. Soon after rumors tied Ju to former adult video actress Asuka Kirara, he left The Boyz and his agency. His then-label, One Hundred, immediately terminated his exclusive contract and filed a damages suit reportedly worth billions of won.
In a recent Billboard interview, Ju spoke for the first time about the night at the center of the scandal, when he and Asuka Kirara were said to have spent time together. “I first saw Asuka Kirara at a get-together with friends,” he said.
“I met up with friends for drinks, and that was the first time I saw Asuka Kirara. It was a group hang. As the night went on, I heard that one of the people there used to be an AV actress. That turned out to be Asuka Kirara, but as far as I knew, she had retired five to seven years earlier,” Ju continued. The two made small talk about her career pivot and business ventures, he said.
At the table, Ju said, “I was told she moved on from her previous job and became a businesswoman, and that she was doing really well. We were drinking together, I got curious, and naturally I asked questions. She said she runs a cosmetics business and a dermatology clinic, so we talked about that kind of thing with everyone at the table,” adding, “We all kept drinking after that, and the vibe was such that any adult could have gotten that tipsy. I'm twenty-seven, too.”
His account lines up with what Asuka Kirara’s side said months earlier. At the time, she stated, “That was my first meeting with Haknyeon Ju, and he asked me various questions about my career.”
Right after stories alleging a sexual encounter exploded, Ju says his agency brought him a termination agreement. The document, he claims, demanded a massive penalty fee.
“When I saw it, I said, ‘There’s no way I can agree to this amount. I can’t sign.’ I just kept crying because I felt so apologetic and sorry,” Ju recalled. “If I had to pay that in reality, I thought my life would be over. Bankruptcy felt like the only option. So I kept saying, ‘I can’t do this.’”
After he refused to sign, the agency filed a damages lawsuit seeking even more than the sum in the original agreement, Ju said.
Looking back, Ju said he cannot rule out the possibility the company fueled or steered media coverage, especially since he felt the reporting grew harsher after he declined to sign.
“It was too on-the-nose. The only people I told any of this to were at the company. To be honest, I never had any sexual relationship with Asuka Kirara, and I never discussed anything like that with the company,” he said. “We never spent the night together, and there’s no evidence of that. Even so, outlets ran those stories without any proof, and the company is still suing me on the premise that I did those things, even after police cleared me of wrongdoing.”
Ju closed by saying he hopes his experience serves as a wake-up call for other K-pop artists. “A company doesn’t always protect its artists, and it may not act like a ‘real company’ should,” he said. “If I lose this case over something I didn’t do, I think companies could exploit situations like this again and again.”