| Jung Joon-young KakaoTalk chatrooms | |
| Partof: | the Burning Sun scandal |
| Native Name: | 정준영 등 불법 촬영물 제작 및 유포 사건 |
| Native Name Lang: | Korean |
| Date: | November 2015 – June 2016 |
| Location: | South Korea |
| Type: | Entertainment and sex scandal |
| First Reporter: | Bang Jung-hyun |
| Charges: | Gang rape, illicit filming and sharing |
| Convicted: |
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The Jung Joon-young KakaoTalk chatrooms was a South Korean entertainment and sex scandal publicized in 2019 as part of the Burning Sun scandal. The two scandals were tied together by the release of revealing KakaoTalk messages that exposed alleged crimes at the Burning Sun nightclub, and separately, by K-pop singer and entertainer Jung Joon-young and his friends and colleagues.
Leaked KakaoTalk messages from Jung's phone revealed conversations and videos dating from 2015 to 2016, which were used in a police investigation that resulted in gang rape convictions (two victims, separate dates) of Jung and four other chatroom members: a former member of F.T. Island, Choi Jong-hoon; a former Burning Sun employee named Kim; a businessman named Kwon; and a former employee of YG Entertainment named Heo. Jung's conviction included charges for eleven instances of illegal filming and sharing. Big Bang singer Seungri, around whom the Burning Sun scandal centered, was charged, at the same time as Jung and Choi, with sharing illegal photos in Jung's chatrooms. He was subsequently found guilty on nine charges in the Burning Sun scandal, one of which was three instances of sharing illegal photos via a mobile chatroom.
During the course of the investigation, other charges were made against solo singers Roy Kim and Eddy Kim for allegations of sharing illicit photographs in Jung's chatrooms. Both of their cases were eventually dropped after it was determined that, while they each shared one photo they found online, they did not create illicit content or participate in the chatroom where Jung shared illicit content.
Other entertainers were affected by the leaked KakaoTalk messages. Singer Yong Jun-hyung left the boyband Highlight after he admitted to viewing a video Jung had filmed with consent in a bar but shared without consent. Lee Jong-hyun of rock band CNBLUE also admitted to viewing Jung's videos and allegedly asked Jung to get him a woman to have sex with; Lee later quit CNBLUE. Actor Cha Tae-hyun and comedian Kim Jun-ho both temporarily suspended their entertainment industry activities after the chatrooms revealed they allegedly gambled illegally.
The allegations of sex crimes involved added to the South Korea's "epidemic" of what is called molka, a Korean word for the online distribution of nonconsensual sex videos taken of women.[1]
South Korean singer-songwriter and television personality Jung Joon-young began his entertainment career in 2012 as a contestant on the audition show Superstar K 4, in which he placed third. While filming the show, he met fellow contestants Roy Kim[2] [3] [4] and Eddy Kim,[5] [6] both solo singer-songwriters. Jung later met Big Bang member Seungri at an awards show.[7]
In 2016, an ex-girlfriend filed criminal charges against Jung, claiming he filmed them having sex without her consent. She later withdrew the charges.[8] [9] During this period, Jung dropped out of the television show 2 Days & 1 Night, but returned after three months.[10] [11] In 2017, a JoongAng Ilbo analysis noted that Jung's quick return to show business after his 2016 sex scandal showed the public was becoming more tolerant of the "private lives of celebrities".[12]
On February 26, 2019, cable TV channel SBS funE published KakaoTalk messages they received from an unnamed source. The messages, which would become part of the Burning Sun scandal, appeared to show Seungri directing staff at a nightclub he owned to bring prostitutes for the club's clients.[13]
The SBS Eight O'Clock News revealed that the source of the KakaoTalk messages was a lawyer named Bang Jung-hyun, who was interviewed by the news program on March 11, 2019.[14] Bang said he obtained the messages from a whistleblower who was a technician at a phone repair shop where Jung had dropped his phone off for repairs.[8] [15] The whistleblower had sent an email to Bang that contained thousands of messages taken from Jung's phone from a period of eight months in 2015 and 2016. The messages appeared to include Jung, Seungri, and other male celebrities. Bang said of the chats, "Their conversations showed that there were not only sex crimes by celebrities, but also a cozy relationship between them and top police officers." Bang told SBS he had forwarded the messages to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission in February. SBS reported that the messages could not have been manipulated because a tamper-proof device called a hash-code verification was embedded in them; the messages could therefore stand as circumstantial evidence to seek more evidence, SBS reported.
Media outlets, including The Korea Times, later translated the messages into English. In one conversation, dated January 1, 2016, Jung allegedly typed in a group chat, "Let's all get together online, hit the strip bar and rape them in the car", to which another member of the group chat, identified only as "Park", responded, "Our lives are like a movie. We have done so many things that could put us in jail. We just haven't killed anyone."[16] [17] Another group chat, dated April 17, 2016, allegedly shows Jung responding to a conversation with two people identified only as "Kim 1" and "Choi":