K-pop trainee rules: no dating, no phones, weekly weight checks – Blackpink, Twice and BTS members reveal what Korea’s entertainment agencies really demand of their idols

Nov 18 , 2020

BTS’ RM, Blackpink’s Rosé and Twice’s Momo are among the K-pop stars to open up about the strict rules and restrictions future Korean idols are subjected to on their way to the top. Photo: @rapmonster_r_m; @roses_are_rosie; @twice.__.momo/Instagram

Spoiler alert: K-pop stars weren’t born perfect. They didn’t always look all that great, dress that glam or move so effortlessly. Before graduating to idol-dom, would-be Korean stars go through a rigorous training system that can take up a decade or more of their lives with no end in sight, and which trainees will ever get to debut in the public eye remains ever-uncertain.

Exhibit A: Jihyo trained for 10 years before starting her idol career as a member of Twice. And while the routines and restrictions may differ between groups, one thing every agency has in common is a robust list of rules that trainees must abide by – from handing in their phones to prohibitive weight-reduction requirements. Here’s what it really takes to make it as a K-pop idol.

It’s only for three years. After that they are free to bring boyfriends over, and I would buy them dinner

Park Jin-young, founder, JYP Entertainment

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Boy trainees and girl trainees must not eat together – ever

K-pop agencies make sure to keep their recruits focused on nothing but their professional practice, and to avoid any chance of the greatest teenage distraction of all getting in the way – romance – male and female trainees are kept strictly segregated.

On the talk show Radio Star in 2017, Blackpink’s Rosé revealed that male and female trainees weren’t even allowed to look at each other or say hi, let alone be in the same space. To make that happen, dinner times would be scheduled differently, and the girls’ managers would keep an eye out to ensure no boys were lingering around, or even block the view of any male passing through. Thankfully after debuting, the rules are relaxed and musical collaborations are encouraged.

No dating

Dating was off limits for members of Twice until three years after the group had debuted publicly. Photo: JYP Entertainment

If shared meals are out, it goes without saying that going steady is definitely not in the cards – even after debuting. JYP Entertainment, the agency behind Twice and Got7, is famous for maintaining a strict no dating rule until three years after an artist has emerged in the public eye.

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Founder Park Jin-young tweeted that, “After the debut, I advise them to not meet friends and only stay focused on practising for three years.” In a 2015 interview, he elaborated on the rule, saying, “It’s only for three years. After that they are free to bring boyfriends over, and I would buy them dinner.”

The three-year countdown is widely referenced, with JYP idols often asked how many more months they have left until their third year is over. In 2016, Wonder Girls appeared on the show Radio Star and humorously announced, “Now we are free to date anybody. So if you guys have any interest, call us, text us, whatever, thank you.”

No phones

It’s also well known that the distracting influence of mobile phones is a big no-no. According to what many K-pop idols have said so far, performers are often only allowed access to their personal phones after they have won first place in a music show.

In 2016, on the show Immortal Songs: Singing the Legend, the girl group GFriend shared that they only now had their own personal phones after winning a music show. SNSD’s Tiffany Young (now flying solo) also told the Zach Sang Show in 2018 that at the start of the project none of the members had mobile phones, so she had to go out to a phone booth to make international calls to her parents in the US.

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Keeping a strict diet plan

K-pop trainees invariably live under a strict diet plan 24/7. There’s even a famous list circulating online detailing the high-calorie foods that trainees are forbidden to eat – including tteok-bokki, jajangmyeon, ice cream, hamburgers – and several K-pop idols have later shared tragicomic stories of trying to sneak food into their dorms. Called the “black bean noodle incident”, this February on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon , BTS recalled the moment during their training years when RM said he’d go to the toilet but in fact went to a nearby restaurant and gobbled up a serving of jajangmyeon within four minutes.

And in the third episode of the original BTS: Burn the Stage YouTube series, RM said that he and V once shoved ice cream into their pockets. “V and I were walking down the street eating ice cream and then we noticed a black van following us,” he said. “I got scared thinking it might be someone from the agency. So we shoved the ice cream into our pockets to pretend like we weren’t having ice cream.”

The scariest part? He was right. It was someone from the agency, and the bandmates casually said they were returning to their dorm … but with ice cream all over them.

Weight checks … posted for all to see

Along with the diet plan comes the weekly weight check. In 2015, Kim Jae-kyung, the actress who debuted with girl group Rainbow, shared in the show Same Bed, Different Dreams that during her trainee years the agency would check their weight every week – and publicly display the figures on the wall. It was so stressful that band members would cut their nails short, go to the bathroom repeatedly, and spit out saliva to reduce their weight even by the slightest amount.

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Momo, from girl group Twice, says she once lost 7kg within a week at the demand of her agency. Photo: JYP Entertainment

It seems like she wasn’t the only one. On V Live in 2018, Twice’s Momo also retold the story of how she was instructed by her agency to lose 7kg before a showcase – and was given only a week to do it. This prompted the Japanese idol to embark on an extreme weight loss plan – eating only one cube of ice and then going to the gym – an approach so traumatic that she cried herself to sleep “scared that I might not wake up again”. The Twice girls around her gasped in surprise and Jeongyeon even said, “Ask them to try it for themselves.”

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K-pop scandals

JYP Entertainment has a strict three-year ban on new idols dating, trainees are forbidden from using their phones or meeting members of the opposite sex, and Twice’s Momo was once ordered to lose 7kg in a week – what it really takes to make it in K-pop