BELIFT LAB Explains Min Hee Jin’s Selection of ILLIT as the Scapegoat for Her Master Plan
Min Hee Jin is facing a major controversy in her ongoing lawsuit with BELIFT LAB and HYBE.
On November 14, 2025, during the fourth hearing at Seoul Western District Court, HYBE accused the former ADOR CEO of orchestrating a smear campaign. They said Min Hee Jin had her employees create documents that falsely claimed other K-pop groups copied NewJeans—targeting HYBE’s new girl group ILLIT.
This legal battle kicked off in April 2024 when Min Hee Jin accused BELIFT LAB of plagiarizing NewJeans’ concept for ILLIT. BELIFT LAB hit back with a ₩2 billion KRW ($1.38 million USD) defamation suit. Min Hee Jin then countersued for ₩5 billion KRW ($3.45 million USD).
The court recently sided with ADOR, confirming NewJeans’ exclusive contracts and dismissing plagiarism claims against ILLIT. The court said,
“It is difficult to conclude that a girl group ‘concept’ falls under trademark, publicity, and/or intellectual property rights defined in an exclusive contract.”
Following the ruling, HYBE argued Min Hee Jin tried to manipulate public opinion by making ILLIT a scapegoat because they had a weaker fan base.
They submitted KakaoTalk logs showing that as early as March 2024, before ILLIT debuted, Min Hee Jin and her team planned to accuse ILLIT of chart manipulation and plagiarism. BELIFT LAB detailed,
“When ILLIT’s debut schedule was announced on February 27 last year, an ADOR deputy director planned to accuse them of manipulating charts with a song that hadn’t even been released, in order to pressure HYBE. And on March 18, the day ILLIT’s debut teaser dropped, they showed an analyst a maliciously edited short-form video defaming ILLIT and pushed them to write a ‘sell report’ urging investors to dump HYBE stock.”
— BELIFT LAB
BELIFT LAB also claimed Min Hee Jin ordered employees to gather “monitoring documents” filled with online posts, comments, and doctored videos accusing multiple groups of copying NewJeans.
“Min Hee Jin’s written statements and press conferences were nothing more than a smear campaign. Her plagiarism accusations are clearly unlawful acts that cannot be protected as a form of freedom of expression.
Min portrayed herself as a righteous whistleblower and positioned herself on the ‘good’ side, prompting the public to believe there was no need to hear the other side. Following the plagiarism allegations, ILLIT suffered tremendous tangible and intangible damage, including a sharp drop in album sales and halted production, as well as canceled filming schedules, paused advertising campaigns, and members being subjected to malicious comments.”
— BELIFT LAB
Fans reacted strongly, pointing out the irony since Min Hee Jin had previously criticized HYBE’s internal documents leaked during an audit.
“No wonder… All the comments about NewJeans being the ‘original’ makes sense now.”
“Yikes. This woman has done so much.”
“And NewJeans benefited from this.”
“Damn, she tried to kill off a group that hadn’t even debuted? She’s insane. She needs to be banned from the business.”
“I mean, her documents don’t sound all too different from HYBE’s documents… I’m baffled that she used HYBE’s documents to fuel hate toward HYBE idols [when she was doing the same]. LOL.”
“She was set on stomping all over ILLIT even before their debut. And people on theqoo played part in that. This is crazy.”
The controversy shows no signs of slowing down as both sides keep fighting over reputation and damages.
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