“Instead of BLACKPINK, I almost ended up on a blacklist…”
Koreaboo
2 hours ago
More and more former idols are revealing the harsh reality of being an idol, and former ARIAZ member Hongyeong has spilled the tea, going viral for her new video.
Hyogyeong recently released a video about her time as an idol, but the title read, “I ended up with DEBT?”
In the video, Hyogyeong explained that after five years of training and three years promoting, she was actually in debt, explaining how the fees worked out and that they were deducted from your salary.
When you train for five years and finally debut as a K-Pop idol, you kind of think you’re going to become BLACKPINK. I thought so too. Instead of BLACKPINK, I almost ended up on a blacklist.
What happens if you’re not in the 0.01% that makes it big. After five years of training and three years of promoting as an idol, the money left in my bank account was not zero, it was negative.
When you’re a trainee, things like dorm rent, lessons, and training lessons and food all start stacking up. After you debut, album production, videos, styling and marketing, all of that also gets deducted from our payment.
After about two and a half years of promoting, I finally got my first earning statement. I was excited, I was thinking ‘I can finally give my parents some allowance,’ but when I opened it, it was just debt.
— Hyogyeong
[Video could not be displayed]
Hyogyeong then joked that while she had heard it had taken BTS some time to get paid, she kept up hope. Yet, while BTS got theirs after three years, when their three-year anniversary came around, they disbanded. Yet, shockingly, she also added that when they disbanded, they did get rid of all the debts.
I heard that even BTS didn’t receive their first settlement until three years after they debuted, so I told myself, ‘Okay, let’s just surivive three years. After that, things will get better.’ Well, after our third year came around, instead of a settlement, we got a disbandment notice. BTS became legends and us, well, we became a trivia question.
— Hyogyeong
[Video could not be displayed]
When the video was shared, it quickly garnered attention online with posts about it having thousands of likes and comments.
idk whether to laugh or cry 😭 pic.twitter.com/z1kTYbp0lj
— sity (@sitypinks) March 14, 2026
Former member of ARIAZ, Hyogyeong, talks about being being a kpop idol:
“When you debut as a kpop idol, you kinda think you’re going to become BLACKPINK. But instead of BLACKPINK, I almost ended up on a blacklist. The money left in my bank account wasn’t zero, it was negetive.… pic.twitter.com/ujivakahjs
— About Music (@AboutMusicYT) March 15, 2026