In an interview, THIS K-pop girl group revealed the traumatizing experience that they had under their agency, such as forcing them to have plastic surgeries and resort to dangerous diets to maintain their figures.

SKYGIRLS Reveal 'Diet Formula' They Must Follow + Confess Agency Forced Them To Have Plastic Surgery

In a broadcast, SKYGIRLS exposed the power abuse and harassment they experienced from their agency, leading to a lawsuit.

As a brief context, SKYGIRLS is a quartet girl group comprised of Japanese members. While they originally came from Japan, they debuted in South Korea as a K-pop team in 2019, under SKY Entertainment and ONETOP Entertainment. The team is created by singer-composer Yang Sungjeung and they debuted with the digital single, "Because of You."

Unfortunately, they weren't able to establish their name amid the influx of strong K-pop girl groups, leading them to unofficially disband in 2020 or 2021.

On April 12 then, after about four years outside the limelight, the members Karina and Runa opened up about the traumatic experience they had while working as K-pop idols through a Japanese broadcast.

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According to the members, the agency undoubtedly invaded their privacy, as they have to report all their personal movements every minute through messenger.

But what they found the hardest was losing weight. Runa and Karina revealed that the agency would threaten them with canceling their schedules if they won't lose weight and follow a certain diet formula as well which is extremely dangerous.

The members explained:

"Girl groups need to subtract 120 from their height to achieve a 'normal' weight. If you are 165cm tall, you should weigh 45kg.Whenever I ate, I took a picture of what and how much I ate.

I also measured my weight in the morning and evening and sent it to the representative of the agency. I ate only a quarter of a bowl of rice. Because of the harsh diet, I felt severe dizziness and had a nosebleed every day, but they didn't even give me time to rest."

As if the unguided diet formula wasn't enough, the girl group also sexually harassed them along the process such as touching them to "check" their bodies.

The agency also forced SKYGIRLS to undergo plastic surgeries. But the cost wasn't covered by the company but borne by the members.

SKYGIRLS Win Lawsuit Against Agency

In particular, the SKYGIRLS members signed a 10-year contract with their Korean agency because they were not familiar with Korea's standard contract system, which is a principle of up to seven years.

But after experiencing all of the aforementioned, they couldn't stand it and all returned to Japan.

As a response, their agency filed a compensation suit with the Tokyo District Court, demanding about 146 million won (about 111k USD) for violating the contract.

However, in a ruling last month, the court rejected all claims from the agency and acknowledged the members' termination of the contract. In court, the agency justified its diet formula and claimed, "Korean idols do this much."

But, the court pointed out that "while demanding a high degree of weight loss, the method was not properly guided."

On the other hand, the members were now working for a Japanese company and when asked if they are considering pursuing being an idol, the members stated that they were heartbroken and lost their confidence to try again.

READ MORE: 5+ K-pop Idols Who Filed Lawsuit Against Agency They Were Under

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Written by Eunice Dawson.