Wonder Girls’ Ex-English tutor reveals poor treatment by JYPE

Tuc To on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 7:00PM

Behind those happy faces may well be some sad stories. Daniel Gauss, a former English tutor for the Wonder Girls has been in e-mail communication with The Korea Herald and has revealed some unsettling information about how the five-member group was treated by the JYP Entertainment company in the United States. Keep reading to find out what allegedly happened.

First of all, The Korea Herald has confirmed with JYPE that Daniel Gauss was indeed a former private English tutor at the company. That being said, whether this information is one hundred percent accurate or not is still up in the air. I’m going to give The Korea Herald the benefit of the doubt, however, and publish this information.

Gauss has revealed that the girls were housed in the JYPE company building illegally. In addition, he revealed that he was “… shocked when one of the girls told me that the girls are not covered by health insurance in America… I once saw one girl in extreme pain — due to a pre-existing problem stemming from a previous operation — who received no professional medical treatment for the pain and I saw others with minor ailments go untreated.”

JYPE was later fined $2,500 for the illegal housing and was scheduled for a court appearance for which neither he nor a representative showed up for. The housing violation can be confirmed via this link.

Gauss also alleges that Park Jin Young used cheap marketing tactics to inflate the Billboard rankings of the Wonder Girls’ single, Nobody. He said that JYPE had sold the single for $1 at retail clothing shops across the United States, which significantly boosted both its sales and its rankings in the Billboard Hot 100 charts. When The Korea Herald questioned the company, a marketing employee, David Hyun, stated that, “That was part of our distribution deal and that is definitely one of the reasons why they cracked the top 100.” When pressed further on the subject, Hyun refused to answer anymore questions.

Back when JYP received the Sony Ericsson sponsorship, Gauss claims that Sunye was rushed to China to perform for Sony executives, despite the fact that Sunye’s father had just fallen into a coma. Gauss says that, “… her father had stopped breathing and had to be rushed to the hospital. In the ambulance, (Sun-ye) and her family had to decide whether the father should be given treatment to be kept alive since he had lapsed into a coma. The family chose to keep him alive and I was told by the girl that he was never going to come out of the coma.”

The Korea Herald’s attempts to confirm these allegations with members of the company have thus far been unsuccessful. The allegations have been dismissed by the company, but Gauss states that, “I cannot profit in any manner by revealing this information… I believe my motives are genuine. I did not ask for any compensation for any of this information and I do not want any. I saw and heard about some nasty things at JYPE and I think people have a right to know the truth, especially since the girls are under contract for the next three-plus years and might not be able to speak freely about negative aspects of their experience.”

UPDATE: JYPE responded to the allegations today:

Jung Wook, CEO of JYP Entertainment stated that, “The interpretation of events was skewed due to cultural differences. There wasn’t any problem and we don’t understand why the problem was brought up now.”

Regarding the housing situation, he said that, “The JYP Center in Manhattan is the same structurally as the one in Korea. We proposed to the Wonder Girls that they stay in a New Jersey house, but the girls told us that they preferred to stay in Manhattan so we let them. A two story housing structure is built there.”

And regarding the health insurance information, he said that, “It’s not like the Wonder Girls couldn’t speak about it, if there was an issue like that, do you think they would just sit back and take it? The girls are constantly going between Korea and America while doing activities. No matter how busy they were, if they weren’t receiving professional medical attention and were being treated unjustly, no matter what you would have been notified by someone.”

Finally, regarding Sunye’s situation, he stated that, “To say she performed because she wanted to benefit the company is wrong.”

JYPE plans to take legal action against Daniel Gauss for his defamatory allegations.

I know this is a lot to take in. So take some time to process it, and then come back and comment on what you think about the situation.

Source: The Korea Herald

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