Nam Joo Hyuk Accused Of Group Sexual Harassment, Management SOOP Responds To New Allegations
Nam Joo Hyuk faces new negative allegations, this time it's about group sexual harassment. Following this, the actor's management responds with a direct statement!
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An anonymous informant who labels themself as a victim has accused Nam Joo Hyuk of group bullying and sexual harassment. This was via a supposed forced group chat.
The supposed victim claimed that they had been invited to a group chat and were not allowed to leave. The other participants, who were all male, began cursing and sexually harassing messages at her.
As per the allegations, Nam Joo Hyuk was also a participant in the chat. The victim claim that the incident happened on the 10th of May, 2012. This was the last year of high school for the actor and his peers.
Furthermore, the victim claimed that they were subjected to curses, sexual harassment, harsh criticism, and more. It was claimed that though Nam Joo Hyuk was only in the group chat, he later allegedly also personally participated in the harsh bullying.
Though Nam Joo Hyuk did not start the incident, the victim claims the actor was still a participant. The victim also stated that the actor and his peers recently had intentions of approaching her to apologize for the previous bullying.
Following this, Management SOOP, Nam Joo Hyuk's agency, released a statement.
Management SOOP's statement is as follows:
"Hello. This is Management SOOP. This is regarding the article on Nam Joo Hyuk.
Firstly, regarding the second round of anonymous accusations made recently, we have checked the facts with the actor himself and of course through other channels, and we wish to tell you again that we have clearly checked the accusations made by the second accuser false.
Next, regarding the KakaoTalk group chat accusations released today and the relevant articles, they have not made public the entire situation and only extracted a partial and one-sided part of the event without any proper explanations about what happened before or after. It is completely untrue that Nam Joo Hyuk tried apologizing to the accuser as they have mentioned.
The truths regarding the KakaoTalk group chat are very complicated and the roles of those involved are very personal. Just as the articles have mentioned, it is a case that has already ended with an apology in school. Following this, we think that it is not appropriate to reveal the entire case through the media. We will also be confirming the truths behind this and also dealing with it legally. In addition, we are disappointed at the media outlets that have published one-sided articles without verifying the truth.
We sincerely ask of you. So far, the anonymous accuser's claims have not been thoroughly fact-checked and there is no clear evidence about the circumstances, but it has been exposed to the media and accepted as if they were true. As such, even if our agency and actor say that no such thing has happened, thanks to the malicious information that has been reported as if it was the truth, it is very hard for us to prove his innocence and absence. Even if criminal proceedings, later on, reveal his innocence, it will not be easy to reverse the current reality and it will cause a huge pain for the actor itself.
For this reason, the agency believes that in order to protect our actor's honor, we will have no choice but to strongly deal with the first and second rounds of accusers and will swiftly proceed with a lawsuit. In the future, we will continue to deal with unconfirmed reckless accusations and the spread of rumors via YouTube, with strong legal actions."
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Management SOOP concluded that though the incident had an apology in school, no further recent apology was attempted. Nam Joo Hyuk's label also states that all the allegations are false. Explaining that only a part of the situation was posted in public.