Jessica Jung was in China recently in order to accept the 2014 Yahoo Asia Buzz Award for “Most Searched Female Artist” (yes, that is A Thing That Exists).
In an interview with reporters at the event, the ex-SNSD member was asked what plans she had for her future. After all, it’s not too often that the most popularly searched artist of the year also happens to be stuck in pop purgatory, but here we are. Unsurprisingly, Jessica’s stated desire for a future career path looks a lot like what her career looked like before she was kicked out left because she wanted to be the next Vera Wang whatever clusterfuck led to the end of the Power of 9.
“I want to try out a variety of fields. Personally singing. I like singing, and I think I would have fun acting too. If I do get to try them out, I want to do it while keeping a balance.”
The awkwardness of trying to pursue a singing career while still being technically signed to SM Entertainment will be the main hurdle which Jessica will have to clear but she would clearly have a following if she’s able to pursue a solo career while maintaining a “balance” between acting and singing.
Jessica also listed Victoria Beckham as a role model due to her ability to work well in various fields.
“She [Victoria Beckham] always perfects the roles she’s been given. It’s impressive.”
As far as role models, Victoria Beckham makes almost too much sense. A woman who started off her career in a girl group before branching out and eventually launching her own incredibly successful fashion line?
Yeah, Jessica definitely has a dream board filled with pictures of Victoria Beckham somewhere in her room.
Hopefully, Jessica’s career arc won’t include a Spice World though*.
*Braces self for an inevitable defense of Spice World
Yellow Slug Reviews 
Oh my god, how did I not see this before? They both share the facade of a cold beauty while possessing entrepreneurial smarts. Now I’m all nostalgic. Hopefully sometime in the future we can see a Posh and Sica photoshoot.
This isn’t really a shock. It’s a perfectly understandable role model. She could have also picked Jessica Simpson as well. Both of those women have made far more with their fashion labels than they ever did in music and entertainment. Ivanka Trump would likely also be a good role model in that she has created a successful fashion label based off of her name and fame.
I think Jessica’s best bet is that while she is still well known and well remembered she should probably look at doing a reality show revolving around her business and her life as she tries to make her company successful. I don’t like the Kardashians, but if Jessica did a similar job of building a show around her life it might work well and keep her visible enough to give her products some cachet that allows them to keep charging a premium price.
I’d definitely avoid dabbling in singing until after SNSD’s next release or even talking much about doing it in the future. That is just opening up a can of worms that she should stay away from until after one sees how well SNSD does without her on a release both musically and financially. If SNSD has success, SM is less likely to be nervous about moving forward with a Jessica solo release or a duo with her sister as their success wouldn’t embarrass SNSD then. I can see her pushing SM to get her cast in a musical again in the near to not so distant future that would not be directly competitive with SNSD, but would keep her name out there.
Otherwise she really needs to focus on her business and expanding her line and freshening it seasonally.
Also, I hope she keeps a close eye on Tyler Kwon. Maybe he isn’t the bad guy he is portrayed as, but there just seems to be something very shady about him in his personal conduct and in his business ventures. I wonder what Jessica’s parents think of him? Are they really charmed by him, or does he concern them and they wish their daughter would have stayed clear of him? There is something about the guy that just screams that if Jessica were to marry him, she would find herself divorced a few years later and be paying him spousal support or handing over half her money and that was his ultimate goal as he moves on to his next sugar mommy.
how da fuq did Jessica beat Clara for most searched??
Clara is real popular in Korea, but I think she isn’t well known in China. Jessica has a very large following on Weibo in China and has been working that angle for several years. Jessica has over 3 million followers in China on Weibo. Plus Clara didn’t have a huge news event like being kicked out of the #1 girl group in Asia to really spur searches in the last few months. Though she did put hip-hop on notice with her single (That they have nothing to worry about as she won’t be taking anyone in hip-hop’s day job anytime soon).
I know that not all of her Wiebo followers are Chinese, but how does it make any sense to kick her out when they are trying to break into China?
It’s just business. Jessica was missing practice time and more importantly her business plans kept catching member’s and their parent’s off-guard. Her business interests became a potential threat to the group’s and individual member’s advertising opportunities and that was the last straw I think as far as parents were concerned, and parents started agitating for her being reigned back in by SM and when they wouldn’t the parents started lobbying the members to remove her. The reality is that a bunch of unmarried 23 to 25 year old women some of whom live with their parents aren’t likely to go against what their parents tell them to do. I think the parents over-reacted and that cooler heads might have salvaged this situation. However Jessica didn’t help matters when she was hard to meet with to discuss this matter because of her schedule due to her business and then word got out that she was scoping fashion schools in New York with Tyler Kwon and I think the parents got together in sufficient numbers to force the issue upon her return from New York and just boot her as to them it appeared she wasn’t taking the situation seriously enough and was already checked out missing practices, putting her business ahead of the group, and not knowing what the deal was with this Tyler Kwon guy. I suspect there was a lot of 20 year old immaturity involved in this too on Jessica’s and member’s parts too where there was conflict avoidance regarding giving her permission to start a business and not really discussing limitations and expectations around that, and then Jessica maybe not consulting enough with the group before making decisions. The group were her indirect partners in her business because anything they do impacts Jessica’s business and vice versa. The decisions of each weren’t happening in a vacuum.
At least that is what looks like what happened to me. We won’t know for certain until maybe Seohyun writes a book about the group one day and maybe give us a peek behind the curtain. I could see Hyoyeon writing a book too that maybe has some honesty that isn’t all pretty about the company, the industry, the group, and the members. We now know it wasn’t always sunshine, puppies, and ice cream behind the scenes and that there was likely a lot of conflict behind the scenes between members, managers, and their parents much like you would see on a hit US TV show with nine actors and actresses egos, handlers, and producers doing battle over pay, who gets choice gigs, etc.
Its sucks that she won an award for something shitty that happened to her. Put her back in the group, have Tokyo Dome 2, sell 60,000 tickets and lets move the f on. I heard the show was awesome by the way.
Kent: you oftent mention the parents when talking about Sica-gate. Do you have any evidence to back up their involvement? Just curious, no offence intended.
Hi Craig, I don’t mind you asking and I am not offended. I am relying on a combination of articles, and gut feel from those articles and from the way this whole ugly affair unfolded. I am also going from my experience of seeing how a business (Family businesses or fraternities) with very close personal ties between the partners in it has very strange dynamics. I hope you aren’t an advocate of 140 characters is the longest one can read as I think to adequately explain my position requires some writing and reading to see where I am coming from. You may completely disagree with me, but hopefully you will see where I am coming from and how I have drawn my conclusion.
Of course, none of us will ever likely know what exactly happened until after this group is officially over at some point in the coming years and someone in the group or very close to it, like their primary manager after he is retired, writes a book about the group, or some serious and music journalist without SM ties decides to really start digging into this after the group is no longer and gets enough people to talk and enough corroboration of stories that a timeline and picture of how things deteriorated really becomes evident as he or she writes a group history.
There were news articles that have mentioned that initially when Jessica went to the group with her plans to start her own fashion business and to leave after the next album the group wasn’t thrilled with it as her premature departure created uncertainty for the group, but they were okay with it. Both sides seem to have a similar narrative on that point. Articles have mentioned that shortly after her discussions with the group and SM being okay with all this, some parents of members started complaining to SM about the situation due to concerns about Jessica missing a lot of the behind the scenes stuff going forward like practice and impacting the group’s ability to get advertisers. This accelerated when Jessica suddenly announced her sunglass line which apparently caught the group off-guard. This may have been SM engaging in spin control trying to take the onus off the girls and the company, but certainly no parent stepped up to dispute that they had gone to the company over Jessica’s behavior and SM enabling it. There were also articles that discussed parents being very involved in the three meeting sessions that occurred during the month before Jessica was booted regarding her dropping her business plans until after she left and her absence from various activities of the group and her future personal plans regarding Mr. Kwon. Once again this could have been SM spin control, but no one has disputed it either and both sides seem to agree on the fact there were three such meetings.
Anyone familiar with stage parents can easily see how once they feel any threat to their own little money-maker they can get very nasty and territorial and can be incredibly hard to control by the child or their agency. Hollywood is full of such horror stories and I am certain that is the case for stage parents everywhere unless they are very well-grounded people or wealthy enough that their kid’s earnings or artistic success are relatively inconsequential. The way the whole Sica-gate unfolded, knowing that there were parents in the mix, just leads me to the conclusion that parents were likely highly involved in pulling the trigger on booting her. I base this on the PR disaster that unfolded. The way that SM was caught so flat-footed by the whole fiasco to me implies that someone was pushing this change along quickly and without SM being kept in the loop as to how quickly this was going toxic. All it takes is a couple parents going around putting the bug in the ear of other parents that their daughter’s finances are under threat or she is being taken advantage of by a slick operator and her boyfriend, and I can easily see parents overreact even if they may have actually liked Jessica previously.
There is only one member of the group that has no parental involvement in her career and that is Tiffany. She joined the group with her dad not being in favor of it, and apparently had Taeyeon’s parents help her with her first contract since Tiffany didn’t speak Korean well enough yet to handle that. All of the other members’ parents seem to be actively involved in their lives with the exception of Yoona’s birth mother who apparently split the scene when Yoona was very young. Even if these parents aren’t generally the worst kind of stage parents and are mostly uninvolved in the day to day of their daughter’s careers, most have benefited financially to quite an extent from their daughter’s financial success. Many have homes, cars, children’s college educations, etc. paid by their daughter’s earnings. Some are no longer actively working at a career of their own. Therefore nearly every parent has as much or more of a vested interest in what is likely their daughter’s last major contract than perhaps even their own daughters, barring a Lee Hyori-level post-SNSD solo career or morphing into an A-list professional actress beyond simply Korea. None of the girls really have what appears to be a second act in them that will earn close to what they have the last several years in SNSD and hopefully for a few more years before this last three year contract expires. The odds are there won’t be a contract after that for the entire group as marriages, burnout, the fickleness of the music business, or other interests in life make it unlikely that this group will be around past that with all or most of its members. Even parents that aren’t in it for themselves are likely looking at this last contract to make sure their daughter is set financially such that they never have to worry financially again or be financially dependent on others. That is a very powerful urge for a parent to secure their or their child’s financial future.
The girls’ managers likely would have had inklings that something was about to go down if the girls themselves were the ones pushing to oust Jessica. This isn’t like a single member making up their mind in private to sue SM and leave the company. This is more of a “conspiracy” requiring meetings if the girls were running this, and I don’t think they could have kept it that well hidden that all eight were having meetings specifically without Jessica. I find it hard to believe that the members would have pulled off such a horribly botched and ill-timed removal (The day before a major fan-meet in China) that would put them all in an incredibly awkward public position. Parents are less likely to care about the PR fallout versus the financial concerns of their individual daughter.
I have a gut feeling that someone was pulling strings here and finally decided enough was enough. I can see parents especially getting very miffed and personally insulted that after three meetings where Jessica had been hard to schedule to even meet with, after her being off in New York looking at fashion colleges, and with the ambiguous situation with Tyler Kwon that they had just had enough of accommodating a 25 year old, and decided to end this regardless of the PR hit. How many 50 year olds take well to playing to a 25 year old’s demands? Not many. Has anyone ever seen how badly it usually goes when a 50 year old reports to a 20-something manager? 20 year olds are usually hesitant to create the level of personal conflict with a 10+ year friend to push this forward so quickly. I just suspect that if the members were really driving this, they would have waited until after the China fan-meet assuming Jessica made it in time to be present to boot her as they likely have a much better understanding than their parents of how such a move would be perceived by their fans and that you would want to do it at a time where you don’t have to be seen in public right away without her.
Is it possible that the members themselves drove this whole process and parents were of little consequence. Sure, that is completely possible. The fact though that the members approved Jessica’s plans and then seemingly a month later were going back on that, seems a bit like what happens when your parents find out you have done something financially stupid with another person and decide to involve themselves as you are obviously too stupid and immature to be trusted with something so important even if you are an adult especially when you are still living with them, or their income is partly dependent on the child’s business. In a sense the girls are the family business of their parents in most cases as their earnings have significantly advanced the family in most cases even if the family was in good shape financially to begin with. Has anyone ever seen what working for one’s parent looks like and how they interject themselves in nearly every business decision you make especially if they think it is a bad one.
I have seen the dynamics of a social fraternity regarding membership conduct on the inside, and in many ways the internal workings of such a group would largely mirror such an environment where what are heavily personal connections intermingle with business responsibilities. You have people who have known each other for a decade or longer and often have few social connections outside of that group of people. When the time comes that a member starts abusing the situation with the group monetarily or via boorish behavior by taking advantage of the friendship factor, it can take a very long time to even get members to consider calling them on the problem, let alone actually doing something concrete about it. Even if Jessica wasn’t universally loved or even liked by the membership, there were still members that were likely close enough to her that anyone even bringing up the idea of any kind of censure or penalty would have a fit. Even once you have a majority in favor of taking an action, the vote is often highly divisive and corrosive. Obviously one big difference is that the business side of this has a lot more money at stake, which lessens the chances of someone saying “You boot her and I quit” or “Prepare to boot me next if you boot her, but I won’t go quietly.” Now maybe Jessica had really sundered her relationships with all 8 other members to the point where she had no backers who pushed to keep discussions going or were flat out against removing her either because they felt it was personally distasteful or that it was stepping into a professional minefield that was likely worse than the problem.
I found that in fraternities that often alumni who were much older and had no personal attachment to a problematic member had to push the matter forward regarding removing or disciplining a member as men or women in the late teens and early 20’s simply aren’t that good at separating personal and business. That’s in cases where you may have only known the person in question for one to four years. The alumni in a sense were stepping into the role of parent with kids that weren’t making good decisions. I can’t imagine what it would have been like booting someone who had been a friend for a decade even if the friendship had cooled. When we had to boot a three or four year member it usually became a purge as several of their longtime friends resigned in protest or had to be booted too as they were now personally attacking those driving for the removal of the person. About the only time such situations ended well is if the recalcitrant member resigned and left to avoid creating a civil war between members or to make it easier on the group as they realized they had made mistakes that justified their removal. Few folks usually had that sense of personal honor though and that was without hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars at stake.
One sees similar issues in family businesses as well where due to the personal connection behavior in a child who works for the business will be tolerated much longer than it would be elsewhere, and it is very hard to sunder that relationship without outside intervention like a business partner of the company pushing for that kid’s or parent’s removal as a condition of doing future business.
It is just a hunch, but I have a feeling that if this had been left to the girls and SM that maybe Jessica would have been censured and put on a hiatus of some sort as an intermediary step before booting her outright. That might have happened almost immediately upon returning from Guangzhou or it might have taken a few more months. That would have been much better from a PR standpoint as it would have saved face for the group and Jessica. It would have provided a cooling off period where both sides could sit back and decide how much they missed the other party if at all. Maybe Jessica realizes she really missed the performing and fan meets more than she thought she would and realizes that it isn’t completely unfair for the group to expect her to attend at least some number of practices and other behind the scenes stuff to do those things. Likewise, the group gets a feel for what the impact of Jessica not being with them would be and whether the damage of pushing her out would be greater than the annoyance of her maybe performing sloppily at times due to a lack of practice or . Now of course, Jessica might have told them to go to hell over such an offer, but she probably would also be smart enough to know that it was being done as a step short of being outright booted and put her on notice to how thin the ice was that she was standing on. Maybe Jessica could not have extricated herself from a mess of her own making by having gone forward with her business too aggressively too soon, but it might have provided both sides with an opportunity to set up a clean break. Maybe if Jessica’s schedule opened up enough near time to record the next album she would come back from hiatus and perform some with the group, but in the meantime she wouldn’t attend the group’s money-making ventures like fan-meets, concerts, etc. and would not get proceeds from the same. She also would not be included in any new group endorsement deals signed during that time. The flip side is that Jessica at least on the surface still is a member of SNSD and benefits from that association for her business. The thing is that it just seems to me that this got very personal very fast which seems unlikely with people you had known closely for that long unless one was behaving as a complete ass with absolutely no effort to be communicative or conciliatory.
Maybe folks will think I am crazy. In which case I would like to hear their theory as maybe they can convince me of holes in mine. Some may think I have too much time on my hands to think about this so much, and perhaps I do. However, this fiasco caught my attention just because it was such a fiasco and for my own sense of closure, I have tried to construct how this could go south so badly and so quickly.
Of course one factor in this too is how well do we really know any of the members? All nine of these girls could be absolutely despicable behind the scenes and this group has been in danger of being torn apart almost from the day it debuted, but if that is the case they have done an incredible job at hiding that behind a facade of what appeared to be pretty genuine friendships and normal personalities for people in a very stressful job. I don’t think I am going out on much of a limb regarding these girls actually having been on pretty friendly terms with one another even if many weren’t best friends much as happens in a fraternity or sorority where not everyone is best buddies, and may not always really enjoy being around each other, but woe to the outsider that attacks another member as there is still a close bond there.
Kent, you really should have your own blog. And I do mean that in a good way.
For real Kent. Your comments and thoughts are always incredibly well reasoned.
Thanks guys. If I could read and speak Korean, I’d probably think about it. One of the things that interests me is the business side of K-pop and that is what I would likely blog about if I could read Korean as there are plenty of blogs about the pretty girls and music, like this one, but I haven’t seen much on the ins and outs of contracts, lawsuits, trainee costs, debut costs, income generation, saejigi rumors, etc. Unfortunately those are all things that would require reading hard business news in Korea and developing contacts. That sort of thing isn’t likely to show up on sites like Soompi, AKP, fan cafes, etc. I was an accounting major in college, so the numbers and business side always interest me. Ironically I never worked as an accountant as I ended up falling into IT instead as a systems engineer.
Kent I enjoy reading your comments. All I know is she’s not in the group anymore, and then there are girls crying onstage in Tokyo performing ITNW and my head is exploding! This has to stop! Hopefully with a comeback album and OT9 sellout tour. That, is the new dream.
Yes, it is really sad seeing the pictures of the group celebrating Yuri’s recent birthday without Jessica, especially since at one time Jessica and Yuri were pretty good friends. Also it just looks weird seeing the photos backstage or onstage with just the eight of them. It’s also so weird seeing how much promotional material still has Jessica in it even with three months passed since her removal. I haven’t seen footage of them performing since Jessica left. I have kind of been avoiding it as hearing someone else sing Jessica’s lines seems like it would be pretty sad and would probably put me in a bit of a funk.
I felt so sorry for Krystal having to attend an SM Town concert with f(x) just weeks after Jessica got booted. First, she is so close with her sister that her sister not being around to even talk to, must have been very hard for her. Then it would be nearly impossible to not hear SNSD performing on stage and then hear someone else singing her sister’s lines, which could not be an easy thing to hear. I’m not surprised that Krystal collapsed at the end of f(x)’ performance. She is anemic to begin with, and was in the midst of filming a drama, but that must have run her through an emotional wringer being there for the first time without her sister and she was likely running on fumes. Plus Krystal is almost like a 10th member of that group having been around them a lot because of Jessica and you have to imagine that Krystal is now awkward around all these girls that she likely called friends until now. If she is seen fraternizing with them backstage or onstage Jessica’s fans are going to cry foul over her being disloyal to her sister, so even if she wasn’t awkward with some, she can’t really be seen with them without it being a problem. Likewise it would look odd for the SNSD members to be seen being chummy with her.
One thing that made me wonder a bit whether the girls were forced into booting Jessica by parental pressure is how genuinely upset they all seemed at that fan meet in China the next day. I’d think that if they had decided on that course of action on their own the would have seemed more relieved than upset. Instead you have Seohyun almost unable to to do anything and them all being very emotional. I hadn’t heard they were crying at their Tokyo concert, but if they still are visibly upset at times while performing either they have some serious buyer’s remorse, or it backs up my gut feeling that parents pushed this and the girls just pretty much had to go along with it and it still really upsets them. After all, let’s be honest, how many young women who have never really been truly independent are going to tell their parents to f-off if mom and dad are agitating for something like that. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place in such a situation choosing between a friend, their parents, and their careers as the only real lever they have against their parents would be to say if they force them to do that, they’ll quit. That’s not a realistic possibility as it also means that you basically just blackmailed your parents to back down or the gravy train ends which isn’t going to make for a good ongoing family relationship.
My hope is that Jessica’s business does well enough over the next few years that perhaps she ends up looking back on this as a blessing in disguise that maybe helped her focus on her business and that in hindsight she realizes that she couldn’t build a business from scratch like that and be in SNSD at the same time and done both well. One would have suffered greatly or both would have been mediocre. Hopefully Jessica stays with SM and maybe performs with Krystal or does some solo work. At the same time, I hope the group feels a void even if their sales aren’t damaged and they never really get used to performing without Jessica.
I think it would be very difficult for Jessica to comeback to the group for their next recording. I think it would be too soon for both sides and honestly unless Jessica completely bailed on her business I can’t see the group letting her back in as they would look even more foolish for booting her and then letting her back in with no real change in the situation that supposedly got her booted in the first place. Also, I can’t see Jessica being able to dial back her business now as she has too much at stake from a reputation standpoint to make it successful. She’d look foolish too if she suddenly could make time to show up for practices and coordinated everything related to her business through the group carefully.
In 2017 the group will have its 10th anniversary and it will be their last contract year. I expect that we will be hearing a retirement announcement from the group that year with one last studio album and a farewell tour. I can see TTS maybe persisting as a project group, but I think by 2017 members like Hyoyeon, Yuri, Yoona, and Sooyoung will either be burnt out (if they aren’t a bit already) or looking to do other things in life professionally or personally. I can see the same being the case with Sunny, Seohyun, and Tiffany as well. Taeyeon at age 28 is likely going to be thinking about putting this chapter in life behind her too. She loves to perform and sing, but I think she hates being an idol and all the scrutiny and crap she has to put up with to do the one thing she seems to enjoy.
Assuming no one else has left early further changing the dynamics of the group, here is my serious longshot scenario. First, Jessica’s business is doing well financially and has reached a point where she could step back a bit for perhaps a 6 month stretch. Second, she really misses performing with SNSD. Third, the members miss performing with her too. Fourth, members that have perhaps stayed in touch with her make some peace overtures to both sides in this figuring you can’t really bring closure to the group with Jessica frozen out and they quietly discuss bringing her back for their last album and tour with SM and keep their parents out of the loop. Their parents will have very little leverage with the group coming to an end within months at that point even if they objected.
Here is my less of a longshot scenario. The group’s last concert is likely going to be in Seoul. Even if Jessica and the group still have difficulties, someone with enough pull in the group who is also close enough to Jessica might propose bringing Jessica in as a surprise for the fans for the last set of the concert and the encores, or bring her out for the last encore. Either way fans would lose their minds if during that last set they suddenly realized that they were counting nine girls emerging on a dais from the stage or if on the last encore everyone expected to hear Sunny singing Jessica’s line and instead they suddenly heard Jessica sing it as she emerged onto the stage. There probably wouldn’t be a dry eye in the place if that happened. For just a set or just a song even if Jessica was really busy with her business, she could likely squeeze in enough practice time to rehearse that much especially if it wasn’t any new material that she had not been a part of. Alternately maybe you give her a solo stage during the group’s concert as a way for the fans to say goodbye to her even if she doesn’t perform with the group as she was a big part of the group’s success.
Of course, the chances are that neither of those long shots happen as the divide may still be too large for anyone to bridge or both sides have finally moved on enough that something just wouldn’t feel right about it. Still one kind of hopes that one does get a chance to see them all on stage together one last time even if it for just one song or even if it is just Jessica coming out to wave and maybe hug the members after the last encore. The thing I would really hate to see with this group is that years from now you occasionally see a photo of the eight together for birthdays and Jessica is never there like an Orwellian unperson. That would be kind of sad like when siblings have a falling out over something that in the grand scheme is really pretty minor, but they don’t speak again until maybe one is dying or never find out that the other is dying and miss a chance to even try to reconcile.
I suppose if we see some pictures with at least one other member with Jessica in the coming years there may be some hope of some kind of reconciliation, but if you never see any of them together with Jessica then the chances are likely quite remote. Right now things are too raw, but maybe with some time one of the members that was close to Jessica invites her to their birthday party with the rest of the group to maybe make a tentative step towards healing the rift. Of course this all assumes that Jessica didn’t really burn bridges with the members with her behavior towards the end and that there aren’t serious grudges between members and Jessica that are unlikely to ever subside either due to feeling like their friendship was taken for granted, trust was broken, or simply that they got forced into this bad position because Jessica could not wait a year for the next album before moving forward with her future plans.