The Straits Times Podcasts S1E5: Lawsuit that broke K-pop boy band TVXQ in half: Can I Tell You Something Crazy?
Revisit the watershed 40-month legal dispute between SM Entertainment and former TVXQ members, that has seen a repeat attempt by three EXO members recently.
Synopsis: Can I Tell You Something Crazy is a new scripted series every month under the #PopVultures banner, which examines with fresh eyes, events that shook Asian media and entertainment.
In 2009, the five-man K-pop boy band TVXQ were on top of the world. Their fourth album Mirotic was the best-selling album of 2008 in South Korea, with over half a million copies sold, while the hit title track Mirotic swept wins at awards shows and gained fans around the world.
With 800,000 fans in their Korean fan club - the most of any K-pop group at the time - and 200,000 fans in their Japanese fan club, TVXQ were superstars. As one of the earliest breakout K-pop groups of the Hallyu wave in the early 2000s, they were the first Korean act to headline a concert in Malaysia and the first Korean group invited to perform at the Japanese New Year's Eve music programme Kohaku Uta Gassen.
But everything came to a halt in July 2009.
At the peak of their popularity, three members of the group - Hero Jaejoong, Micky Yoochun and Xiah Junsu, who would later come to be known as JYJ - sued their management agency SM Entertainment and asked to be let go from their contracts. But fellow members U-Know Yunho and Max Changmin, insisted on staying with the company, splitting the group's considerable fandom in two.
Hot on the heels of the recent attempt by three members of another SM Entertainment group - Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin of EXO - to terminate their contracts with the company, #PopVultures host Jan Lee revisits the watershed 40-month legal dispute between SM Entertainment and former TVXQ members.
With the help of K-pop scholar and senior lecturer at Macquarie University Dr Thomas Baudinette, she examines the aftershocks the case left on the industry, which can still be felt even today.
Produced by: Jan Lee (janlee@sph.com.sg), Paxton Pang, Eden Soh and Penelope Lee
Edited by: Penelope Lee & Paxton Pang
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