During HYBE‘s audit that took place on October 15, 2024, ADOR‘s new CEO, Ju Young Kim, was questioned about a 2022 incident, where a HYBE employee died of gwarosa (death from overworking). Kim said, "Yes, from what I know, in September 2022, an employee went to the break room around 5 PM, saying they would take a rest. Unfortunately, they passed out, and we found them in the break room and moved them to the hospital. They passed away a few days later due to their personal illness. It’s an unfortunate case."
However, an insider has revealed shocking details about the incident during an interview.
Insider talks about HYBE's Gwarosa
Recently, Bizhankook released an interview with a HYBE insider—identified as ‘a current employee who has worked there for several years’. The unidentified person said, “Yes, there were rumors going around the company. I didn’t personally know the employee who passed away, but I know their story. The first time I heard about them was when I saw a company-wide notice about their passing. It caught my attention because it was a notice about someone’s death. There were talks like, ‘It was a gwarosa’ and ‘It happened in the break room’ and so on. I believe there was an article about it, too, although it was later removed. After hearing the talk, I remember thinking, ‘That’s certainly possible’.”
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The insider called the workload 'unreasonable'
Talking about why the said person thought it was possible that it was a case of gwarosa, they said, "Because I was also exhausted myself. It was during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was working at BIGHIT MUSIC. My teammates and I used to joke around saying we’d rather catch COVID than keep working the way we were. It was rough. The workload was just unreasonable."