Roy Kim Wraps Up Korean Commitments: Singer To Return To College In The U.S. On August 25

In two weeks, chart topping K-pop artist Roy Kim will board a plane and leave South Korea, for now.

The "Superstar K4" winner will be just another college student when he touches down in the US and resumes his studies at Georgetown University's Madonough School of Business in Washington, D.C. this month.

Roy has taken two semesters off from school a representative from the singer-songwriter's management company Fortune Entertainment explained to the website TENASIA, and the college did not allow him to extend his leave of absence.

"I'll become a more mature person starting fresh with my university life while studying hard in music," Roy Kim told eNEWS on Monday. "I want to sincerely thank all the fans more than anything."

This will mean the end to Roy's stint as co-host of the South Korean radio show "Roy Kim And Jung Joon Young's Close Friends," on Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation's FM4U station.

His last show will be this Sunday.

Roy shot to the top of the Billboard K-Pop charts with his hit single "Spring Spring Spring (or "Bom Bom Bom"), but he faced harsh criticism that he had stolen several other artists' work on that single and others and passed it off as his own.

When "Spring Spring Spring" won the Mnet 20's Choice Award for 20's Booming Star last month, Roy admitted he was disturbed by allegations that he had plagiarized "Where The Wind Blows" by Kim Kwang Suk, "Take On Me" by A-ha and, most recently, the ukulele version of Acoustic Rain's "Love is Canon," for the song.

"Lately, I've troubled and worried many people," Roy said in his Mnet acceptance speech, the same week an allkpop poll found that 64 percent of those surveyed believed Roy Kim plagiarized "Love is Canon."

"My heart is heavy, as well. I'm sorry. But I'll take this award to mean that I'll work even harder sincerely and more modestly."

On August 1, Acoustic Rain released a lengthy statement thanking the online fans that caught the similarity between the ukulele version of his song "Love is Canon and "Spring Spring Spring" and also expressing no intention to pursue legal action for copyright infringement.

"I don't make music with bad intentions. I try to sing only the truth with a heart filled with love. I also have a trauma concerning lawsuits," Acoustic Rain's statement read.

"When I was in my twenties, my parents were faced with a lawsuit so I witnessed a lot of their financial and emotional damage. The effects of that lawsuit led my mother to be treated for long periods of time at the neuropsychiatry ward at the Incheon Christian Hospital and an another hospital in Incheon."

And while the fact that he and Roy Kim are both on the record label CJ E&M raises the issue of how much freedom the "Love is Canon" singer has to speak his mind, Acoustic Rain says the controversy has been painful for him as well.

"If Roy Kim got hurt from this experience, I want to say that I'm sincerely sorry," Acoustic Rain's statement read.

"Honestly, I myself couldn't do anything for the past two weeks. [I've been] in a state of numbness. Now I will get myself together and work hard as well. I dream of a world filled with forgiveness, consideration, and love."

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Roy Kim
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