7) Hwayoung and the Staff

One of the things that Hwayoung is accused of is upsetting the staff by being rude to them and severely criticizing their work, particularly the hairdressers, whom she is alleged to have called “Shampoo” instead of using their names. This may not be as straightforward as it initially appears.

When Hwayoung joined T-ara many fans did not welcome her. They resented her jumping in and gaining instant success when the other members had worked so hard to make the group popular. If the fans felt like that, how did the staff feel? Perhaps that they had worked hard too, for low wages (KKS himself said they were underpaid) and then this new girl appeared from nowhere and shot past them to a much higher status without having done anything to earn it. She must have been working hard and doing well in training, but they wouldn't have been involved. That might well lead to them victimizing her, treating her as someone not worthy of their attention, giving her that horrible haircut, and putting her in clothes that were so unsuitable that she suffered an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, the notorious “nipple slip” incident, when she was exposed on a music show. It is part of the stylists' job to make sure that nothing like that happens, but it did, and it happened to the new member. That the staff took a dislike to her for reasons that were not her fault is more credible than the idea that Hwayoung was just a bitch who liked making people miserable. That is the story that the staff like to tell, and it is not consistent with anything that I have been able to establish as true. She is good with children and animals, and seems quite timid and reticent when she's seen with the other members, but looks very happy when she gets some attention from them. I am sure she loved and admired them, and needed a lot of love from her unnies, just like Areum said she did.

It is interesting that the other members don't seem to have had a negative attitude to her. They would have been fully aware of how hard she had to work and they knew that they couldn't blame her for taking the chance she had been given. If the problem was really more the staff than Hwayoung, that explains why she was not removed from the group earlier. I find it hard to accept the notion that 19 staff were constantly belittled and humiliated by one girl, and no action was taken until a bullying scandal started, then suddenly her behaviour was considered so intolerable that she had to be fired immediately instead of having some time off to recover from her injury and sort out her relationship with the staff. The story makes no sense and that is why it only intensified the scandal.

I have another reason for not trusting the staff who blame Hwayoung for the problems. When the twins appeared on Taxi an anonymous former staff member used the unjustified outrage as an excuse to reveal Hyoyoung's texts. It was cynical, reckless, inconsiderate and insensitive. It showed a lack of concern for Areum and caused her a lot of unnecessary trouble. In addition to that, Hyoyoung and Areum had already sorted out their problem, but that staffer didn't care and wanted to take revenge against Hwayoung. How many of the other staff were like that? 

They seem to have been one of the reasons Areum, another who leapt into the group from nowhere, didn't last long in T-ara. On 18 February 2018 Soompi reported Areum saying this:
“Hwayoung truly has a cool personality. She was a person who took good care of me, the new member of the group. I heard that Hwayoung scolded Hyoyoung for sending those text messages to me.”
Han Areum revealed she feels no resentment towards her members. She said, “I was hurt by the staff and people around me rather than my members."
Han Areum Opens Up About Bullying Controversy, Life After Leaving T-ara, And "The Unit" | Soompi

If the staff hurt Areum there is a strong chance that they hurt Hwayoung too. That would be why she didn't like them and why she reacted angrily to the Shampoo accusation, which she felt was unfair.

The manager who went to the hospital with Hwayoung must have known that she felt she was not was fit for the stage. By reporting to KKS and presumably the other members and staff that the hospital said there was no problem he created the conditions for a major rift and I think it's likely that it was a deliberate attempt to split Hwayoung from the group. That is not something that you would normally expect a manager to do, but a few days later he was calling for her to be removed so it's a reasonable suspicion in this case.

If I am right then the staff, or some of the staff, were the root cause of the scandal that caused so much misery. They have played the innocent victims and shifted the blame onto Hwayoung. As witnesses I find them unreliable and insincere, but please don't start a hate campaign against them. My aim is to defend the innocent, not punish the guilty, and I do not have absolute proof. Certain people have questions to answer, but they don't seem to have been asked. They should not be considered proven guilty without having a chance to defend themselves and it is not for us to impose justice. 

One interesting feature of this affair is how quickly the stories about Hwayoung and Hyoyoung appeared after Taxi. It was so fast that it's worth considering the possibility that it was planned in advance, with everything carefully prepared to create uproar among fans about Hwayoung “playing the victim” and immediately hit them with tales of faking injury and threatening violence. 

 

When Kim Woori told the Shampoo story he did it on TV so everyone knew who was speaking. Why was the staff member who told the Hyoyoung story anonymous? Giving a name would improve his/her credibility as it would be easy to check whether the person really worked for CCM. There are three obvious reasons for choosing to be anonymous. 

 

It could be someone who did not really work with T-ara, but this seems unlikely.

It could be a genuine staff member who was not as innocent as the image that we are usually given and did not want Hwayoung to come back with her own counter allegations. This still leaves the problem of having a copy of Hyoyoung's messages.

(Some readers may be thinking "You are anonymous. Why should we believe you?" The difference is that I am not claiming to have been there and to have direct first-hand knowledge of the events. All my facts come from the documents that I have read, and they are available to everyone, so my identity does not matter.) 

The third possibility is one that I think is quite likely. CCM/MBK had sat on the Hyoyoung story for years and wanted to tell it to make T-ara look like victims of bullying by Hwayoung and Hyoyoung. They couldn't do that back in 2012 because they wanted to keep it as a deterrent to stop Hwayoung talking too much. Had they made it public she could have responded with the details of the way she was treated in Japan and that was a risk they didn't want to take. They needed to do it in a sneaky way so that the public would not know that they were responsible and Hwayoung would not have a reason to attack the company. This could be considered risky as they would be relying on Hwayoung's goodwill towards T-ara to keep her from defending herself and Hyoyoung, but she had shown over the previous four years that she had no wish to create extra problems for them. 

 

The interview was recorded well in advance of the broadcast and it is reasonable to suspect that there were people working for TVN who knew people high up in MBK and were keen to help restore T-ara's reputation. If they tipped them off about Hwayoung crying in the taxi when they were talking about the time when she left the group they could prepare the story and the social media campaign. As it turns out there may have been no need for TVN to inform MBK directly because they put out a trailer which set the process going among the fans and introduced the idea that Hwayoung cried while talking about T-ara. 

 

The episode was shown on 8^th February 2017, but the fans were already discussing it on 1^st February, making comments like these:

“Again using t-ara”

“Oh my god can't she leave T-ara alone already??

Looks like she still always has to bring them up to boost her 'career'"

“Don't worry, Queen's (T-ara fans) will call her out on her bullshit if she tries to victimize herself again

She really is a good actress, she fooled a whole nation into believing she was "bullied" and now she tries to get popular with that because back then she realized that she never stood out in T-ara at all lol”

https://onehallyu.com/topic/464717-akp-hwayoung-to-open-up-about-the-past-controversy-with-t-ara-on-taxi/

WTF? What's that for? She's just answering the question. The fans are assuming that she chose the subject she was talking about and that she was trying to gain an advantage at T-ara's expense. And this was a week before the broadcast! If she had ever tried to make herself look like T-ara's victim she could have done a much better job of it. The fans' insistence on trying to clear T-ara by portraying Hwayoung as a monster meant they rejected her denials of bullying and interpreted everything she said in a very twisted way. Taxi is just another example of that. When the broadcast came they went for her viciously, accusing her of playing the victim and crying about being bullied even though she didn't say anything about bullying and hardly mentioned the other members at all. 

 

By taking advantage of this storm of outrage and presenting the story in a way that resulted in headlines like “Former T-ara Staff Member 'Can't Watch Hwayoung Play Victim,' Tells All About Bullying Scandal" MBK (or possibly an unauthorized former employee) gave the impression that a staff member was standing up for T-ara and Areum and they were able to turn opinion against Hwayoung.