Itaewon Class star Ahn Bo-hyun, Exo’s Baekhyun and Chanyeol and other Korean celebrities speak out against Telegram Nth Room sex scandal
Following last year’s Burning Sun sex scandal, K-pop and Korean stars including Moon Ga-young, Junho and Yeonwoo all denounced the Telegram incident on their social media platforms
South Korea finds itself in the middle of yet another sex controversy as more details on the Telegram Nth Room case are disclosed.
Last month, Allkpop reported Cho Joo-bin, a 24-year-old information and communications graduate, was the man behind the Nth Room, under the guise of username “Baksa” or “doctor”. It was reported Cho may have been working on the chat rooms since 2018, after he had graduated.
Over the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Cho had been running multilevel chat rooms exploiting underage women in lewd and violent sexual acts for paying patrons to view. If clients paid more, they could enter a higher tier room that is said to have contained hidden camera footage of celebrities and idols.
According to Allkpop, Cho claimed responsibility for the hidden spy cams discovered in the rooms of actress Shin Se-kyung and Apink member Bomi’s rooms while filming for variety show Pocha Beyond Borders back in 2018. However, his claims remain unconfirmed.
When news of Cho’s identity broke, fans discovered he had also been following many famous Korean celebrities on Instagram – and their followers quickly took action to warn them about it.
According to Soompi, celebrities received direct messages from concerned fans, prompting them to block Cho on their accounts. Television personality and announcer Shin Ah-young, who was warned by a former student, said on her Instagram: “If I feel like I’m going crazy just by knowing that he was following me, how would those young girls who were directly victimised by him feel?”