Back on November 21, news outlet Dispatch reported that Hook Entertainment did not pay Lee Seung Gi anything for his music that he released since he debuted in 2004―in total of 27 albums/137 songs.
The news outlet concluded that Lee Seung Gi was gaslighted by his agency for the past 18 years from the day of his debut.
They constantly told him that he was a 'minus' singer, which he believed until last year.
After Lee Seung Gi realized that the agency in fact had been taking advantage of him this whole time, he asked his agency for explanation and payment.
Since they gave him no explanation or payment for a year, he recently filed a document against Hook Entertainment, demanding a transparent record of his earnings and payments, as well as payment for his music.
Then in the end of last month, the head of Hook Entertainment stated that she was going to take full responsibility of everything that was going on with her company.
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Hook Entertainment said, "First of all, we would like to sincerely apologize to Lee Seung Gi, who is probably going through a more difficult time than anyone else due to this issue."
The agency continued, "As everybody knows, we were asked to provide the transparent data of Lee Seung Gi's earnings and payments from his debut up to now, along with full payment of the amount of money that should have been paid. We collected the relevant data and handed them over to Lee Seung Gi's attorney in the beginning of this week. Based on those details, we hoped to reach an agreement with Lee Seung Gi."
They went on, "However, we ended up failing to reach an agreement, as the amount that requested by Lee Seung Gi's side was too different from the amount that we had calculated ourselves."
The agency resumed, "So, we paid him all that make up of his unpaid payment―2.9 billion won―today. This is on top of 1.3 billion won that he was paid for his music already. We also gave Lee Seung Gi 1.2 billion won as interest for the delayed payment."
They commented, "Now that the payment has been made, we have filed a case to the court to confirm the absence of debt to close the dispute over payment issues between us and Lee Seung Gi."
Hook Entertainment wrapped up the statement by saying, "Once again, we would like to offer our genuine apology to Lee Seung Gi for causing him to have such misunderstandings and conflicts with us because of our poor handling of work. From now on, we hope that we could negotiate a settlement through the court, with none of us raising questions against one another about the amount of payment. We are truly sorry to everybody who were hurt because of what had happened."
(SBS Star)