After the confirmation of B.I's departure from iKON and YG Entertainment following his drug scandal, the agency has officially removed the idol from its website. Photo used for iKON only includes the remaining six members: Junhoe, Bobby, Chanwoo, Jinhwan, Yunhyeong, and Donghyuk.
Also, Naver removed iKON and YG Entertainment from B.I’s profile nearly immediately after the news broke. Daum has also changed iKON’s profile to having only six members and deleted B.I from the member lineup. Considering how it took days for Seungri, who has been involved in a series of scandals including embezzlement, prostitution, illegal drugs, and more, to be removed from BIGBANG’s profiles, fans expressed their disappointment about B.I’s removal.
Seungri still can be found on the YG Entertainment official website. The 28-year-old singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, entrepreneur, DJ, and creative director is still seen with the other BIGBANG members in the photo. His solo profile, however, has been deleted.
As expected, iKON fans were very upset about it. “HOLY SH*T YG fricking took B.I out of ikon's profile. like wts man they removed him faster than they removed Seungri's merch. GIVE THE MAN A DAMN BREAK MAN. He didn’t even take the damn drugs,” one said. “YG removed Hanbin from iKON's profile FASTER than giving a proper answer for the scandal!!!” Another one commented.
Media outlet Dispatch raised the red flag after it unearthed Kakao Talk messages from three years ago. These allegedly detailed a conversation between B.I and a dealer, in which the singer asked for a discount and the dealer warned him about the effects of taking drugs.
The two also spoke about the risks of being found out by the authorities, with B.I urging the dealer to delete their chats. Apparently, this was not done, which lead to yet another K-pop scandal.
iKON's management agency, YG Entertainment, initially defended B.I, saying all members of the group have never failed drug tests. After B.I posted his statement, the company followed up by saying it had canceled its contract with him.
Meanwhile, Seungri, a former member of one of the most successful Korean bands was embroiled in one of the biggest scandals in K-pop history. It all started when CCTV footage of an assault at Burning Sun, a club which Seungri owns, was released. But instead of brushing this off as a usual club brawl, the police decided to dig deeper, opening up a Pandora’s box of scandal.
But Seungri’s alleged bribery case is now being closed. However, the case will be reinvestigated if further evidence is revealed in the future.
