SM Entertainment co-CEO Lee Sung-soo slams founder Lee Soo-man in video

SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man speaks during a forum at the Grand Hyatt Seoul in central Seoul on February 14 [YONHAP]

SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man has been destroying the K-pop institution with his personal greed, the company’s co-CEO Lee Sung-soo argued in a statement uploaded to his YouTube channel on Thursday morning.

He said in the video: “As a member of SM Entertainment, we cannot just sit back and watch the company be controlled by Lee Soo Man.” “I want to explain in detail why SM Entertainment has become what it is now.”

Lee Sung-soo, the nephew of Lee Soo-man’s wife, has been serving as CEO since 2020.

According to the CEO, Lee Soo Man set up a Hong Kong-based production company called CT Planning Limited in 2019 to evade taxes and has been looking to expand the business to cover all of SM artists’ overseas music activities.

Lee Sung Soo claimed that Lee Soo Man forced the entertainer to publicly declare that he was important to the company and tried to manipulate the employees by ordering the formation of a team to influence the upcoming shareholder meeting with a budget of over $10. billion won (US$7.8 million).

SM Entertainment co-CEO Lee Sung-soo released a statement via his YouTube channel on Thursday morning. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

“I’m ashamed, I’m pitiful,” Lee Sung-soo said. “We can no longer face SM’s employees, fans, artists, and every shareholder who invests in this company.”

Girl group aespa had to cancel its new album due to Lee Soo Man’s stubbornness, the CEO said.

The girl group’s new album, which was supposed to be released on Feb. 20, 2023, was delayed due to Lee’s “greed and stubbornness” about her real estate business and the production behind it, he said.

“Lee Soo-man has been arguing about K-pop festivals dominated by ‘Planting Trees’ since last year,” he said. “He suddenly started supporting sustainable development […] He also ordered aespa, which has a clear concept, to sing a song with the theme of tree planting. ”

“The lyrics contained words like ‘just sustainability, lowering the temperature, cohabitation, greenism,’ which upset the aespa members so much that they shed tears,” he continued. “Our co-CEOs couldn’t stand content that no one agreed to and decided to cancel it for aespa’s sake.”

The CEO ended the video by teasing over text messages and phone calls with HYBE founder and chairman Bang Si-hyuk.

Yoon So Yeon [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]