BIGBANG announces comeback as T.O.P leaves YG
VIPs received some good news this morning as YG Entertainment announced that BIGBANG would be making a comeback this year.
In the announcement, the entertainment agency revealed that the group would be “releasing a new song this spring.” Recording for the song has already been finished, and the agency shared that the group is getting ready to film the music video.
Aside from the comeback announcement, YG Entertainment also revealed that T.O.P. would no longer be with the agency moving forward. T.O.P. -- real name Choi Seung-hyun - has been with the agency for 16 years before this announcement.
According to YG Entertainment, T.O.P. will now be taking on “a wide variety of new challenges as both an artist and an entrepreneur.” The agency said that T.O.P. had expressed a “desire to broaden the scope of his individual activities aside from just BIGBANG.” The remaining members of BIGBANG - G-Dragon, Taeyang, and Daesung - reportedly agreed with his decision.
As for future projects with BIGBANG, YG Entertainment said that T.O.P. would participate “whenever he is able.”
T.O.P. is the second BIGBANG member to leave the stable of YG Entertainment, with the first one being Seungri, who left the company and retired from the entertainment industry in South Korea due to his involvement in the Burning Sun scandal. The Burning Sun scandal started out as an investigation into whether Seungri provided Burning Sun investors prostitutes and quickly spiraled into allegations of spy cams and sexual assault against Seungri and other prominent idols, such as Jung Joon-young, Highlight's Yong Jung-hyung, and F.T. Island's Choi Jung-hoon, all of whom retired from the Korean entertainment industry.
Seungri recently had his three-year prison sentence for his involvement in the scandal lowered after he admitted to all the charges brought up against him, which include violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes, violation of the Food Sanitation Act, embezzlement, violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes, habitual gambling, prostitution mediation, purchase of prostitution services, and special violence instigation.
Seungri's sentencing was one of the biggest K-pop stories last year. Check out other big stories from K-pop in 2021 in the gallery below.