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Big Bang’s Seungri retires: Is he trying to escape his alleged prostitution scandal?

The K-pop world was shocked when news of Big Bang’s Seungri being suspected of allegedly supplying prostitutes to businessmen emerged. According to reports, he’s doing this to entice them into investing in his company Yuri Holdings, which manages restaurant and entertainment businesses.

BBC reported that Seungri connected prostitutes and his potential business partners through a group chat back in 2015. Messages from messaging app KakaoTalk have also emerged which showed Seungri allegedly convincing a staff member to make arrangements.

These suspicions were also fueled by the fact that Seungri is known as “Korea’s Great Gatsby” because of his lavish lifestyle. He’s also seen at the nightclubs at the Gangnam district, where he’s allegedly hooking up businessmen with prostitutes.

Since the controversy went public, Seungri announced that he was going to retire and has cancelled all his engagements, including the rest of his solo tour. He said in a statement on Instagram, “I will sincerely submit to the investigation on this matter, and reveal [the] truth to all the allegations.” He’s also denied all the accusations against him. This came after furious fans called on to YG Entertainment to kick him out of their roster.

But it seems like retiring won’t save Seungri because prostitution is illegal in South Korea. If he’s found guilty, he’ll carry a prison sentence of up to three years. But the prostitution isn’t the only issue here, he may also be investigated for corruption but there are still no developments on that yet.

This is a huge scandal in the K-pop world. We hope that the truth comes out and that they get to bottom of all these accusations.

[BBC and Korea Times]

Photo courtesy of Seungri’s Instagram account

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