NewJeans' debut was postponed because of Min Hee-jin's personal ambitions, not because of HYBE, the K-pop company said in a rebuttal of the ADOR CEO's claims made during a news conference a day earlier.

“The reason that NewJeans did not become HYBE's first girl group was not because HYBE did not keep its promise,” the company said in a statement.

The company stressed that it had already sent Min a detailed answer to her questions on April 22, in contrast to her claim that she'd never received a full answer regarding the matter from HYBE.

“CEO Min requested her own team, saying that she would take full responsibility, at a separate label. We respected her wishes and transferred the [NewJeans] members to ADOR, despite Source Music's opposition, and supported her with a large sum of 16 billion won.”

“NewJeans' debut schedule had to be pushed due to papers related to spinning off a company, regardless of HYBE's intentions,” the firm added.

HYBE also stressed that it had inevitably needed to ask Min to keep NewJeans' predebut promotions to a minimum because there was only a two-month term between the debuts of Le Sserafim and NewJeans.

“News articles were already pouring in against [Le Sserafim] member Sakura's contract with HYBE,” the company said.

“If ADOR explained its girl group as 'a group made only of new trainees,' then it would have revealed information regarding Sakura and the members of NewJeans. The request was only made for the good of both teams and the [silence] term was shortened to start promoting NewJeans.”

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]