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K-pop giant BIGHIT Music has finally addressed the controversy linked to TXT's Soobin that has been making rounds on social media.
Soobin was involved in a disturbing deepfake AI allegations, after a male influencer shared false videos and photographs, claiming to be romantically involved with the singer.
Chinese male influencer claims to be involved with Soobin
On October 21, the controversy escalated and began trending on Weibo after the man claiming to be connected to the alleged leak began a livestream to address the situation.
During the livestream, the mam said that when he was involved with Soobin, he did not know that the other person was a top K-pop idol. As a result, he sent a video to a close friend.
However, he alleged that the friend betrayed his trust, took screenshots of Soobin's private moments, and posted them on social media.
When viewers asked whether they were still together, he nodded, fuelling online speculation.
After the "gay deepfakes" made headlines, fans of the boy band urged the company to take legal actions and to protect Soobin against malicious attacks.
BIGHIT Music responds to controversy linked to Soobin
Reacting to the scandal, BIGHIT Music shared a statement hitting back at the false information.
"We have recently identified the indiscriminate spread of false information and malicious rumours targeting our artist across social media platforms and online communities, and we have been taking appropriate internal measures in response," the statement noted without mentioning Soobin.
The label shared that while they did not address the rumours until now to avoid giving it unnecessary attention, the malicious attacks "have reached a critical level ahead of the artist's comeback, we are taking additional steps to protect the artist’s rights and well-being".
BIGHIT assured fans that the negative content is being monitored and that they will be taking legal action against those responsible.
"Given how seriously our artist's personal rights have been violated, we are acting decisively against malicious posts on all platforms, including social media and online communities."
Born in 2000, Soobin debuted as the leader of TXT in 2019, a boy group under BigHit Music, part of HYBE Labels.
Beyond music, Soobin has also garnered fame as a host of Music Bank.
