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.
Development
Background 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 and Eddy Kim, both solo singer-songwriters. Jung later met Big Bang member Seungri at an awards show.
In 2016, an ex-girlfriend filed criminal charges against Jung, claiming he filmed them having sex without her consent. She later withdrew the charges. During this period, Jung dropped out of the television show 2 Days & 1 Night, but returned after three months. 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".
February 26, 2019: First set of KakaoTalk messages released 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.
March 11, 2019: Second set of KakaoTalk messages and source revealed 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. 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. 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." Another group chat, dated April 17, 2016, allegedly shows Jung responding to a conversation with two people identified only as "Kim 1" and "Choi":
March 12–16, 2019: Police question Jung and other entertainers retire Jung, who was in Los Angeles filming a television show, returned to Seoul on March 12, where he was booked as a suspect on charges of illegal hidden camera filming and sharing and accused of taping ten or more women. Later that day, Jung released a statement saying, "I admit to all my crimes", and resigned from all his entertainment work a day following Seungri's resignation. Jung said, "I filmed women without their consent and shared it in a chatroom, and while I was doing so I didn't feel a great sense of guilt", and apologized to his victims.
On March 13, SBS reported allegations that police had tampered with evidence in Jung's 2016 sex scandal.
Jung and Seungri were both called into the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) on March 14, with more than 100 journalists gathered outside. Jung apologized before entering the station for questioning, followed by Seungri later that day. Seungri exited first at around 6:15 a.m. on March 15, and Jung exited around an hour later, following 21 hours of questioning. Jung told reporters he had handed in his "golden phone", a nickname for his second mobile phone that reporters had speculated may be where Jung stored his illegal videos.
Meanwhile, on March 14, two more singers, Yong Jun-hyung of the boy band Highlight and Choi Jong-hoon of the band F.T. Island, announced their retirement from their respective music groups following speculation that they were participants in Jung's chatrooms. Yong admitted to viewing a video that was filmed with consent, however was sent to him without consent and participating in "inappropriate conversations" about it, saying, "All these behaviours were extremely unethical, and I was stupid". Yong was questioned by police as a witness. Choi had been a member of one of the chatrooms that was of immediate interest in media reports and the investigation. In one conversation, Choi allegedly detailed his own drunk driving incident from 2016, that was allegedly kept out of media coverage due to help from a police official with the surname Yoon. Choi was questioned by police on March 16 under allegations of secretly filming and sharing videos.
On March 15, another Korean idol, Lee Jong-hyun of rock band CNBLUE, admitted to viewing Jung's sex videos in a group chatroom and making disparaging remarks about women, talking about them as sexual objects. The admission followed a prior denial on his part and an SBS report of an alleged KakaoTalk conversation he had with Jung, during which Lee asked for "young", "pretty" and "kind" women he could have sex with, and to which Jung responded, "Who do you want?" Lee left CNBlue in August after a female YouTuber revealed private messages he sent her, "drawing new attention to his inappropriate interactions with and about women", Billboard reported.
Other celebrities affected by the scandal were actor Cha Tae-hyun and comedian Kim Jun-ho, Jung's fellow cast members on 2 Days & 1 Night, who suspended all of their entertainment industry activities on March 16 after the chatroom conversations revealed they allegedly gambled large amounts of money while playing golf overseas.
March 21, 2019: Jung Joon-young arrested Jung was arrested on March 21 for charges under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes. He was charged with crimes against at least ten victims for illegally filming and distributing sex tapes. Jung admitted to the charges and apologized at the hearing for his arrest at the Seoul Central District Court, and was later taken to the SMPA's Jongno Police Station. On March 29, he was transferred from the police station again to the prosecution for referral of an indictment, and he was indicted on April 17.
April 2–10, 2019: Third set of KakaoTalk messages revealed and more entertainers involved On April 2, 2019, the SMPA issued a summons for singer-songwriter Roy Kim, who they said appeared in the illegal chatroom with Jung, Seungri and Choi, and booked him the following day for distributing an obscene photo in the chatroom, which he denied taking himself, and which investigators agreed was likely the case. Roy Kim's agency coordinated his return to South Korea from the United States where he was attending school, and he was questioned by police on April 10.
On April 3, Label SJ, the agency for Kangin of boy band Super Junior, released a statement admitting that Kangin had been a member of Jung's chatroom while the two worked together on the television show Hitmaker three years prior and denied any illegal activity on Kangin's part. On April 4, police said that Kangin, Jeong Jin-woon of boy band 2AM, and model Lee Cheol-woo were members of the chatrooms, but they had no plans to question them yet.
On April 5, singer-songwriter Eddy Kim was booked for circulating one or more illegally taken photographs from the chatrooms.
An early April police tally stated that seven chatroom members had been booked for disseminating spy camera content; and there were a total of 23 different groups or one-on-one chatrooms, with sixteen participants. Included in the bookings and instances of occurrences were: Jung, 13; Choi, 3; and Seungri, 1. Two arrests included Jung and a former Burning Sun employee, surnamed Kim, including a probe of five others.
April 19, 2019 – end of year: First victim files police complaint, arrests and trial