Recently, Irene has been making rounds on social media as a part of Red Velvet's first subunit. But before that, the singer shares that it wasn't always easy. "I doubted myself, I always asked, 'will I be able to make something new?'" Irene said.

During the promotional activities of Irene and Seulgi for the release of "Monster," they participated in a question and answer portion. During the Q & A, Irene openly shared her activities with Red Velvet since the group started in 2014.

"It's true that for the past six years, Red Velvet, as a group, has had a lot of activities, but I've always wanted to do solo activities. So I felt like I wasn't doing a lot of stuff for myself. I've done a lot as a Red Velvet member in the past six years, but as Bae Joohyun, I haven't achieved anything." Bae Joohyun is Irene's real name.

I feel sad when Irene was talking about how she has done a lot as red velvet Irene but not much as Bae Juhyun for herself. I wish SM allows her to do more solo activities such as acting and promotes her well as an artist as well. @RVsmtown pic.twitter.com/mqPiSzYLS2 — SeulKea IRENE&SEULGI #MONSTER (@seulkea) July 8, 2020

 She then elaborated that she felt insecure along the way. "Because of that, I had self-doubts. I began to feel afraid of working alone. Last year, when I had to perform solo at my birthday party, it felt nerve-wracking. Maybe because I got used to working as a group, and I didn't accomplish much as a solo performer. I wasn't confident anymore. So I started to ask myself, 'will I still be able to make something new?'"

"All I ever wanted was to be given an opportunity to shine on my own. To challenge me and to be able to stand alone," she continued.

Since Red Velvet's debut, Irene had a fair share of promotional activities through magazines and endorsements. She even worked with some of the world's biggest brands, like Clinique, Chamisul, and Damiani. However, she never had an opportunity to work on music-related stuff on her own. When it comes to K-pop-related activities, Irene's schedule is loose, given her fame.

An excellent example of this would be how every member of Red Velvet was tagged as vocalists except Irene. She's the only member of the group who hasn't had any singles, collaborations, and OST projects until last year when she was finally featured on DJ Raiden's track "The Only." However, it had little promotional activities. In contrast, all the other Red Velvet members have released 60 non-Red-Velvet related songs in the past years.

Apart from that, Irene is also known to sing fewer lines compare to the other members. In their recently released mini-album "The ReVe Festival: Day 1," Irene sang the least lines with only a total of 12% in line distribution. It may as well be considered as one the worst line distributions on K-pop.

Moreover, Irene shared that she also expressed her love for acting, but she was never given a chance to do so. After Irene opened up about all of these, fans quickly responded over different social media platforms and voiced how upset they are with SME. They called out SM Entertainment for not taking enough care of irene. Seulgi then said, "it's never too late" after hearing what Irene said.

Fans couldn't agree more with what Seulgi said. It truly is never too late for Irene to debut as a solo idol and an actress. Everyone is hoping that the singer gets the opportunity she deserves soon.

thankfully despite sm giving her the worst management possible for years she’s still insanely popular (and still looks super young) so i have no doubt she’ll make up for all that lost time — & (@reveluxe) July 8, 2020