Seunghan leaves RIIZE following fan backlash: “My leaving the group is the right path”

14 October, 2024

seunghan riize departure fan backlash sm entertainment

Seunghan has officially left RIIZE, two days after it was announced that the K-pop idol would be returning to the group after a year-long hiatus from the group.

SM Entertainment announced Seunghan’s departure from the band yesterday (October 13), just two days after the K-pop agency said that the RIIZE singer would be returning from a year-long hiatus. In the label’s initial statement, Seunghan had been previously set to return to the group this November.

In a new statement by SM Entertainment production house Wizard Productions – the division in charge of RIIZE – it explained that its previous decision to reinstate Seunghan as a member of RIIZE “had actually hurt fans more and caused them greater confusion instead”.

“We feel particularly apologetic for prioritising Wizard Production’s position, instead of making our top priorities the growth achieved by the six RIIZE members while working their hardest,” it wrote, as translated by Soompi. “And the preciousness of the times that RIIZE and [RIIZE’s fandom] BRIIZE have spent together.”

The company said that it “made this decision after debating it for a long time because we thought that if Seunghan returned after reflecting on his past wrongdoings and RIIZE showed another level of growth as a group, we would be able to give the artist and the fans greater joy”.

The new decision for Seunghan to leave the group came after the production unit “ruminated carefully on each and every one of the opinions and responses sent in by fans”, on top of the K-pop idol himself “consistently express[ing] his desire to leave the group for the sake of the members and the fans”.

Notably, many alleged fans of RIIZE in Korea had spoken out against Seunghan’s return to the group, following SM Entertainment’s announcement on October 11. Korean hashtags that read “Seunghan out”, “RIIZE exists as six” and other similar phrases were trended on social media.

Korean fans also campaigned to have messages sent to the SM Entertainment report hotline Kwangya 119 calling for his removal, which led to the website server crashing numerous times across the last two days.

Meanwhile, funeral wreaths with messages denouncing Seunghan’s return to RIIZE and demanding for his removal from the band were also sent and displayed outside the SM Entertainment headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.

Seunghan has since taken to fan community platform Weverse to address the situation. “After pondering deeply whether I’ve been thinking only of myself too much, whether I’m causing too much harm to the members and the company, and whether it’s really okay for me to be part of RIIZE, who should be loved, I only felt worried and apologetic,” he write, as translated by Soompi.

“I think that my leaving the group is the right path for everyone. I don’t want to cause any more hurt or confusion for the fans, and I don’t want to harm the members any further, and I also don’t want to hurt the company any further,” Seunghan wrote in the letter. He also thanked both his label and the membersof RIIZE for “[making] efforts to give me another opportunity”.

Seunghan ended his letter by wishing the remaining six members of RIIZE all the best in their future endeavours. “I truly do not want the relationship between RIIZE and BRIIZE, who were growing together while supporting one another, to be damaged because of me,” he wrote. “It also breaks my heart to see the fans, for whom it should be more than enough to just love RIIZE, fighting with each other because of me.”

The singer had gone on hiatus in November 2023, just two months following the group’s debut. At the time, the label said that the hiatus was “related to his private matters that were recently leaked and distributed through online channels”.

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