Rapper Swings clarified that he was not offended by BIGBANG’s T.O.P uploading a photo of him with doodles on it, after the image belatedly became a subject of controversy.

Last December, T.O.P had uploaded a cropped photo of Swings with doodles on his face to his Instagram stories without any further explanation. Recently, the photo resurfaced and some people criticized T.O.P for what they called disrespectful behavior.

On November 22, Swings responded in his own Instagram stories, first commenting that it had been about a year since T.O.P had posted it. Swings then wrote the following:

I wasn’t really upset about it at the time either, and personally I like T.O.P, since I find him endearing. I’m worried that people might see him in a bad light as this becomes a hot topic again. To be honest, I just felt great when T.O.P uploaded it because I’d made it to T.O.P’s Instagram, so I felt like I was awesome. Don’t criticize T.O.P about it. I was a meme king, particularly back then. LET THE BOY HAVE SOME FUN.

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The Korean Business Research Institute has revealed this month’s brand reputation rankings for individual idols!

The rankings were determined through an analysis of the consumer participation, media coverage, interaction, and community awareness indexes of 1,453 idols, using big data collected from October 21 to November 21.

BTS’s Jimin held onto his spot at the top of the list this month with a brand reputation index of 9,463,655. High-ranking phrases in Jimin’s keyword analysis included “BE,” “military service,” and “ARMY,” while his highest-ranking related terms included “charming,” “confident,” and “be together.” His positivity-negativity analysis revealed a score of 81.06 percent positive reactions.

Kang Daniel rose to second place in this month’s rankings with a brand reputation index of 7,491,445, while MAMAMOO’s Hwasa came in third with a total index of 6,421,285.

Finally, BTS’s Jungkook and V rounded out the top five for November at fourth and fifth places respectively.

Check out the top 30 for this month below!

1. BTS’s Jimin
2. Kang Daniel
3. MAMAMOO’s Hwasa
4. BTS’s Jungkook
5. BTS’s V
6. HOTSHOT’s Ha Sung Woon
7. EXO’s Baekhyun
8. BTS’s Jin
9. Ong Seong Wu
10. Girls’ Generation’s Taeyeon
11. Park Ji Hoon
12. BTS’s RM
13. SHINee’s Taemin
14. BTS’s J-Hope
15. ASTRO’s Cha Eun Woo
16. TWICE’s Chaeyoung
17. TWICE’s Jihyo
18. Red Velvet’s Seulgi
19. BTS’ Suga
20. Girls’ Generation’s YoonA
21. GFRIEND’s Eunha
22. TWICE’s Nayeon
23. Super Junior’s Kim Heechul
24. NU’EST’s Minhyun
25. BIGBANG’s G-Dragon
26. aespa’s Winter
27. aespa’s Karina
28. TWICE’s Jeongyeon
29. GFRIEND’s Umji
30. BLACKPINK’s Jennie

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On November 19, Seungri’s third hearing for his eight charges took place at the Ground Operations Command’s general military court in Yongin.

Seungri has been indicted on eight charges including purchase of prostitution services, prostitution mediation, embezzlement, violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes (an additional charge for embezzlement of a sum exceeding a certain number), violation of the Food Sanitation Act, habitual gambling, violation of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, and violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes.

Starting with this hearing, the court will call in 22 witnesses every Thursday until December. The witnesses who were asked to attend the hearing on November 19 were Jung Joon Young, former Yuri Holdings CEO Yoo In Suk, former Burning Sun MD (promoter) Mr. Kim, and a woman referred to as “A,” but only Mr. Kim was present at the hearing this day. Mr. Kim is serving his sentence of four years for charges including indecent act by compulsion. Jung Joon Young’s reason for non-attendance was poor health, while Yoo In Suk’s reason was his upcoming sentencing hearing in December. The court will request their attendance on December 10.

In response to a question related to Seungri’s prostitution meditation charges, Mr. Kim said, “I only did what was instructed by Yoo In Suk (not by Seungri).”

Mr. Kim testified that when he visited Seungri’s home in 2015, he saw Yoo In Suk with two women and also saw him engage in sexual intercourse with a woman. He added that he had never seen Seungri performing sexual acts with a woman nor illegally filming footage.

Mr. Kim explained, “A friend I’ve been close with since I was younger was Seungri’s classmate in university, so [Seungri and I] became close as all of us hung out together. I used to be a club MD, and then I operated a ramen restaurant chain as well as a bar with Jung Joon Young and Choi Jong Hoon.”

He repeated that Seungri had not mediated prostitution services, saying, “In the police investigation, I referred to Seungri and Yoo In Suk as one entity, but thinking about it now, it was Yoo In Suk. When the Japanese acquaintance [at Seungri’s Christmas party] was matched with a prostitute, I accompanied [the prostitute] to the hotel entrance as per Yoo In Suk’s instructions. I couldn’t remember clearly during the police questioning, so I said that Yoo In Suk, Seungri, and Madam A had planned it. Now that I’m asked about it after speaking about the situation, I remember it was Yoo In Suk’s doing.”

Mr. Kim continued to testify, “Seungri had lots of concerts abroad, so he didn’t respond very quickly in our group chat room. As a celebrity, he was conscious of people and once told his friends to be careful with their words and actions. He enjoyed hosting grand parties like ‘The Great Gatsby,’ but he has never once spoken about his sexual desires.”

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