(KPOP / ITZY / Lia / 있지 / 리아) Summary of ITZY Lia's rumor about "bullying"

(KPOP / ITZY / Lia / 있지 / 리아) Summary of ITZY Lia's rumor about "bullying"

 

 

Lia's accuser wrote on an online community that she was bullied by Lia in grade 8. She wrote that Lia had borrowed money from her friend "A" and never paid her back for over a year. Not only that, Lia spread bad rumors about "A", according to the accuser.

 

The accuser also wrote that Lia bullied "B", who was her classmate. The accuser claimed that she couldn't understand Lia's behavior towards "A" and "B", so she talked to Lia about it only to hear insults from Lia and her friends, and they apparently cyber-bullied the accuser on KakaoStory as well.

 

When this post was uploaded, JYP Entertainment quickly took action the next day. JYP stated that they're suing the accuser for writing malicious posts, using multiple IDs, and that they will sue her for defamation through writing about false information.

 

Amid this legal action taking place, more accusations were posted, which added credibility to the accuser's claim. Allegedly, Lia once borrowed a book from a friend and didn't return it, so Lia's classmate returned the book on behalf of Lia, which resulted in being consistently bullied by Lia for a year.

 

Also, in elementary school, when a classmate said she was full and couldn't eat anymore on the "no food waste" day, Lia allegedly put the rice, soup, and all the side dishes together and forced her to eat it. And one day, when a kid who had fought with Lia and Lia's friend sat near Lia and her friends in the cafeteria, Lia allegedly threw a spoon and cursed at the kid. But those who went to the same school with Lia wrote posts to defend her.

 

They claimed that because Lia was so quiet, she was known among female students as a girl with attitude problem, but apprently, she was a good kid who greeted adults respectfully. About the spoon throw incident, they claimed that the kid who was eating by herself sitting far away from Lia and Lia's friends after fighting them kept eating near Lia and LIa's friends, making things uncomfortable for 3 days, so Lia got angry at the kid. They claimed that it was just one of those arguments you have with classmates as a kid.

 

With these new claims spread across online communities, the police made a statement in June after looking into the matter. The police stated that they decided Lia's accuser was not committing defamation. However, the police added that they'd come to this conclusion because there wasn't enough evidence that the accuser had defamed Lia and that they didn't investigate whether Lia was really a school bully or not. The police stated that they're worried that people are starting to believe that Lia was indeed a school bully. After Lia's accuser was cleared of defamation charges, JYP expressed sorrow and stated that they would request a reinvestigation.

 

A while later, in July, the accuser wrote a new post. She wrote that it's hard for her to see Lia still actively working as an idol without providing any explanations. She wrote that it was so hard on her to recall being bullied during the police investigation so she just wanted to hear Lia's apology at least. She wrote that ITZY's manager getting in contact with former classmates to ask what Lia was like in middle school. She also wrote that when she asked the policeman who was in charge of this case, she was told that JYP had never requested reinvestigation, unlike the official statement.

 

She added that a few days later, she heard through the police that the vice chief of JYP Entertainment's artist sector #2 wanted to talk to her, so her friend "A" called the vice chief with no caller id, but no matter what she asked, the vice chief only repeated "Let's meet in person and talk.", and even when "A" said she didn't want to, unless she could receive Lia's apology in person, the vice chief said they would consider getting together with Lia but continued to repeat "Let's meet first and talk." She concluded her post, saying that she ended up writing this post because she was so stressed and got so many hateful comments after the news about reinvestigation.

 

There is only a 2 day gap between the day it was reported that JYP will request reinvestigation and the day the accuser checked whether JYP requested reinvestigation, so it's unclear whether JYP requested investigation within

that gap. I just hope that if the reinvestigation does take place, the truth behind the school bullying will be revealed once and for all.