Managing Director of Incheon Airport Releases Statement that the Byun Woo Seok Private Security Overstepping Their Bounds is the First Time this Has Ever Happened Since it was Opened

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• Everyone is milking this for what it's worth. Doesn't seem like this will die down any time soon.

  • Yeah I’m surprised there’s still continuation to this drama

• This is not going to go away as quickly as his management company has hoped. I dont think guidelines should be set for those private security only, Fans should also be kept at safe distance from idols. There should be barriers set up for those celebs and their crew to walk safely.

  Of course many celebs can use the private check-in route but those who chooses to use public check-in, should be protected too.

  • BWS's company should learn a thing or two from this airport's MD. *This* is how they should have responded previously.

    • 🤣, yes...you are right. not putting out a clear statement is not doing them ay favours. BWS is not in the wrong here.

• On a personal side, I hope Byun Woo Seok is surrounded by close supportive people. This can be very overwhelming for anyone, his mental state must be very trouble. Just looking at his latest photos...I really feel for him.

  Stay strong, in such moments, you may see who are your true friends.

  • Going in the direction of to-to-sevan! LOL. Poor BWS! The most innocent one is bearing the brunt just because of his rising popularity to motivate many to witch hunt him.

    • He took so long to break out...and this happen. Damning...

  • @ +1

    • I mean @HL +1 . See what happened to Yoon Eun Hye because her agency didn't manage her scandal the way Knetizens wanted her to . I mean the apologizing culture + admiting that you did wrong even if it's not true . By just doing that it helps . Seo Ye Ji who didn't apologize about her behavior in private life,... At some point , it's a witch hunt . Hope that it will not happen to him .

    • @cahill, Yoon Eun Hye's experience was just so sad to watch. Damage control was done so badly... To be honest, even as her fan...I could see the outfits she design were inspired by other designers. I apology would be good. No need to add any other content.
      Glad she has a vlog now...I can still see her. I really wished I met her during her trip to London...she live closed to places I hang out in...but no luck. I never saw her...

• I am a bit worried for the apple of my eye Wang Xing Yue going thru something like this thru no fault of his own.
  I don’t know this actor but feel sorry for him. I lay the blame on his team for letting this get out of control. I have noticed his team overworking him and being too greedy.

  • If he had a good, smart and experience manager with him, the manager would know how to cut this practise at its root. It is so obvious such practise is wrong. So I too feel sorry for him being caught in this situation.

• Are we still talking about this? This honestly feels like Incheon trying to shift blame for their employee's failures as well. Lets be honest, there's more than one party at fault here, but BWS is bearing the brunt of it. I don't know if his agency is telling him to keep silent, but they're really not doing him any favors.

  Again, I am reiterating the fact that I hope keyboard warriors try to stay kind with their words. The cyberbullying celebs face can lead to dire consequences. Look at Sulli, or even more recently Lee Sunkyun. They're public figures but they're human too.

  • though i think they will wrangle a personal apology out of him, i truly hope he does not say anything. there's nothing he could say that would make this better. they will tear his apology apart, and continue to find faults, as they are criticizing him now for waving at fans, bowing at reporters, etc.

    i hope bws is not taking any of this personally. people love to see successful people, especially the ones who rose to fame so meteorically like him, stumble and fall. there are many of those on this site too. nonetheless, he didn't personally do anything to justify this level of ire. i hope he lays low, and keeps working hard.

• Painting him as a passive victim of overbearing security staff is a bit delulu given that he stood by let it all happen without saying or doing ANYTHING, even when a kid was targetted by his team. That's what makes him look bad, he can't even say "I tried to stop them" because it's a matter of record that he did not

  • This. It is so funny to see people here making him out to be a blameless baby, as if he can't say anything or have an opinion. He was right there when that kid was flash blinded and played dumb.

    Any normal person would have stepped in. But no, he is hot so he is a little blameless angel and he has no agency. Please.

    • Right. That's Sunjae's filter and successful personality sales by his agency.

    • Please, sent a link with this video with a kid. It seems you trying to make a big deal out of nothing by acting like flash blanding a kid is something dangerous to them.
      I didn't find that video but really want to know how bad it looked for people mentioning about this here a couple of times.

  • Right? I'm also not a fan of the comment above using Lee Sun Kyun's and Sulli's names just to absolve oppa of responsibility. Sulli literally did nothing wrong to be bullied like that by KNetz, she just didn't fit their image of a perfect, docile, "good girl" type of celebrity, she was a feminist who spoke out women's issues and mental health, and koreans didn't like that. It's absolutely tasteless to drag these dead people's names just to defend your oppa, especially when he's not totally blameless here. As you said, he just stood there and did nothing when the whole thing was happening. It's not cancellable, but I'm now definitely side-eyeing him

    • Well put! "not cancellable", but poor judgment on his part and he is NOT a blameless victim, no matter how loudly his besotted fans here and elsewhere scream that, as LMao said above "he is hot so he is a little blameless angel"

      I've been reading Koala's blog since 2013, so I've seen actors who really WERE criminals and did disgusting things getting the same slavish worshipful free pass for their atrocities that BWS is getting her for his minor mistake.

      "Oppa's gorgeous, THEREFORE Oppa is the best actor in the history of History, AND he can do no wrong, ever" is an old story.

      Hopefully BWS learns and grows from this. Admitting that he is at least partly at fault would be a good start, and would show he has more self-awareness and maturity than many of his howling fans here.

    • When did I say he's absolved of all responsibility? I just asked people to be kind with their words because public opinion can hurt every person mentally even if they're guilty (or not guilty of anything in Sulli's case). We don't need to drive people to a corner. I'm just asking people not to take it too far with their words and devolve into personal attacks. That goes for everybody, not just BWS. He's not my "oppa" even if I did enjoy watching LR. Way to jump to conclusions.

• ^ yup they are still talking about this because all over the korean forums etc it's been nonstop negative commentary on him and his agency. we are talking 100s of 1000s of comments. It is so bad it even made it into non-entertainment news section and TV news. Of cos I-fans think it's ridiculous but it's not a small matter for a k-celeb who ultimately depends on his fans in his home country for reputation/fame/image/popularity. K-ent and Korea is incredibly image-obsessed.

  What I see is an agency who is incredibly greedy and fame-hungry and has mismanaged this entire thing. In fact I don't feel they have managed his sudden surge in popularity well since LR ended in May. It's been just mediaplaying him alongside senior hallyu actors and now acting like they have no part to do in this, when they clearly do. They had to have 1) okayed and instructed the private security to do whatever they did 2) keep getting him to go through the public gates when he could very well take the vip one, just so he can advertise the sponsored brands of clothing etc 3) are creating this sort of scenario (I saw the video/pics of his airport arrival and tbh there arent that many fans and it was manageable, most fans were behind barricades) to make him look crazy popular and sought-after, it's another form of mediaplay.

  It comes off very tone-deaf, shady, inconsiderate and incredibly arrogant, especially with their non-apology "apology" statement throwing the private security under the bus and acting as if they had no part in it. They took days to release that statement, and still got him to return to incheon through a public gate. They are most likely preventing him from saying anything about it as well. The thing is, nowadays fame is fleeting and people can trend for months and fall off the face of the earth completely. Their mishandling of this can very easily cause alot of other issues for him and already is.

  Koreans seldom criticise each other like this in public, so for the airport to actually a public statement like that is pretty serious. I don't see this dying down anytime soon and it will follow him for a long time.

  • Agree with all the points you made. I thought it was a very bad idea for him to make a public return. It seemed so cavalier. Almost in your face and greedy for even more publicity.
    The agency should have taken responsibility immediately making it clear that they disagreed with the tactics used by the security firm. Both the actor and his team should have put out an apology to everyone inconvenienced. And have actor come back quietly and lay low until the news cycle moved on. But no, they had to have a very grand comeback. And no apology. Just put the blame on the security people.
    Gosh, I feel sorry for the actor. He needs to fire his team. I remember an earlier post of Ms Koala worrying that they were overhyping him.

  • Agree with all the points, idk why his fans are defending his agency. I had bad feeling with that agency from the time when they released tons of articles either riding or stepping on senior actors

    • What? His fans are defending his agency? That's weird because if I were his fan, I would be absolutely mad at his agency, first at setting him up with those exaggerated BYJ/KDW/WB comparisons, and second at how they handled this whole thing

    • Yeah they’re defending his agency, saying varo cares about their artist and how bws treat the ceo as a father. This should be the time they focused the fault in the agency. Idk if they ate too much of media play or sth, I’ve seen some agency use this strategy to bundle their artist

• LOL Koala. I still don't get it how the angry announcement of the MD of the airport has anything to do with BWS himself? As I said several times, he's just a client hiring the security company for their services. The excessive security measures employed by the bodyguard had nothing to do with the client himself. If BWS were the one to blame, surely he were supposed to issue an apology. But how the heck the client is the one to blame for something not under his control or even in his knowledge when that happened? If the same thing happens in the US, I don't think the public would shift the chagrin from the security company to its clients. LOL

  BTW, should Kdrama fans be so petty to continue censuring actors' private life more than his works? If you were not the one on site at that moment of "inconvenience," you would appear more a nosy busybody than a "righteous" voice. LOL

  • He did nothing and said nothing when it happened. As the paying client he COULD have protested, but chose not to. So it is not accurate to say it had nothing to do with him. They harassed a child while he looked on and made no effort to intervene.

    • @Jamie
      Harrased a child... they just shone a flashlight on him, stop manipulating by these exaggerations.

  • Did you read Koala's post? She said about security team and about his agency, she didn't wrote that BWS were the one to blame.

    • Unfortunately whether we like it or not he will get blamed as well as those involved in the situation. It is what it is. This is Korean entertainment after all. It’s how they roll. Sometimes good aspects and many bad aspects. Hence some celebs have fallen out for far pettier reasons but hopefully he will bounce up from this and his agency will be wiser in their future endeavors for his success and future.

    • Did you read a lot of comments on this site in the related threads? Obviously A LOT of netizens are blaming him for what happened and happy to see his downfall soon.

    • I re-read the post again. Koala did suggest BWS apologize that I don't think necessary since he's done nothing wrong.

      In the US, we care about having right party take responsibility. In the court, the accused is always assumed innocent before the verdict is out. Similarly, ppl don't apologize for what they haven't done wrong. It seems there's a huge cultural gap between the west and the east.

    • @Somebody
      Although people blaimed and talked about BWS under first post about this incident, in other posts all people talk is about his agency.

    • @Rero
      Yeah, he can be blamed, but I don't think it somehow will affect his career.
      It's just gathering of haters, who have nothing better to do than to find a reason to hate and to insult others.
      I can't remember any korean celebrity that wasn't hated for some stupid or serious reason, it's like dark side of popularity. Even if they not hated by scandal, they hated because of some fanwars between toxic fans, lame shippers, or something else. If they're popular, they will get hate just because of this.
      And honestly I think just turn off comments on social media and don't read posts like this on forums would be enough to not know about this or any other hate train towards celebrity at all.
      If you don't read articles or comments like that you won't even notice anything. Just would know about BWS in the dramas or on some public event, and will see that he's career is fine.
      If celebrities have psychological bareer, they probably do the same thing, and don't care so much about haters comments.
      This is that I recommend to them, and probably will do it someday just to watch dramas in peace and to know about nothing.

• This has truly become an epic shit show and I have no idea if we are in the last episode or not. It started off rather small and somehow snowballed into an avalanche of screwups from literally every single person involved. Everyone had a hand in getting it to this level.

  The security company started it, his agency added majorly to the fuck-ups and his fans enraged even the neutrals with their persistent blind protection without acknowledging his team screwed up. The airport officials then flipped them the middle finger by saying the security practically lied about arranging checks prehand, which led to it being featured in political news to the point where the Incheon president was questioned publicly by politicians.

  BWS himself did not help the situation at all. He sent a thank you note to his fans a day after this happened literally with with zero acknowledgement of the situation. An idiot fan then leaked that info which gave out the wrong impression to the regular folks (i.e. he gives no fucks). Then he goes back to Incheon taking the long route to his van instead of having it park on the main floor so he can just get the hell out of there. Instead they chose to parade him through a longer route with minimal security. He got on an escalator tripping while trying wave at fans all in the name of fan service. Its like there is no sense of appropriate actions at a time like this.

  What a true clusterfuck. I have some sympathy for BWS as I understand this is all new to him. It must feel very overwhelming and he is obviously getting no help from an inexperienced team with non existent PR. He is probably doing what he is told for the most part. At the same time, he is a 34 years old adult who has been in the industry for many years. I wish he had more sense and an ability to think and help himself.

  Fan service at the airport was so uncalled for. A brief apology on his paid social media was absolutely called for. He has not opened his mouth while everyone and their grandmothers have when he is the epicentre of this mess. And now apologizing will do him more damage because its just way too late. The damage is done and no matter what he says, it will be received badly. His agency needs to hire a PR firm yesterday and go with that they say which will likely be to lay low, cut on all the ridiculous media play and hope for the best. What a way for his agency to shoot themselves and their actor on the foot after BWS broke out so unexpectedly. This is unprecedented stupidity.

  • Wow. This is the comment I agree with the most.

    You missed that sweet detail where the security company's CEO published an interview saying that he feels really sorry towards BWS for this incident and that BWS has a nice personality. Such a wtf moment and transparent media play in middle of all the fuckups. It's like you want to intentionally rile up the public.

    News was all about public flashing on the 13th and BWS was in the same frame with bodyguard who was flashing.

    The best way to respond would have been for the artist to acknowledge the issue asap, that he is new to this, apologize for inconvenience caused to public, take responsibility with a promise to investigate the matter with the concerned agency so that it is never repeated again. That would have pacified the reporters and public and the details about real illegal actions (checking passports) may not have even come out.
    This would also demonstrate that this person is kind and thoughtful. I also feel a little bad for BWS for getting caught up in this situation but he is a 34 years old adult!

    Though it’s good for general public in a way that all the lax security issues were exposed. A new law may come out it given this was discussed in National Assembly.

  • I love this comment because it's the most nuanced comment here and I love how you consider all sides. Meanwhile, most comments here and on other sites are either "OMG, they're doing a wItCh HuNt and bullying my precious oppa when he's the kindest person in the world, they're such jealous haters who hate seeing people succeed! 😠 Now he's sad because of all of you! 😠" or "BWS is evil, off with his head! 😠". It's like there's no middle ground for most people, he's either a precious kind baby angel who has no agency at all or an evil person.

    Always nice to see nuanced, intelligent comments like this. I absolutely agree with all your points. Personally, I don't think he's evil and he shouldn't be cancelled because of this, but he's also not totally faultless because he just stood by and let everything happened. But everyone in this comment section is infantalizing and babying him while acting like holding him and his team accountable is "bullying" and "witch hunt", which I find laughable.

    Still, I think his agency is the most at fault here. It's obvious that they're greedy and their aggressive media play was such a turn off (media play is fine, but the exaggerated comparisons just set BWS up to be hated). It seems like the agency's number one priority is to get BWS in the headlines even if it's detrimental to BWS

  • Wait, he's 34?! I haven't watched any of his dramas, just following along the gossip on this blog. But, from the way fangirls over here keep acting, I thought he was in his early twenties, at most.
    Why are y'all coddling a grown ass man as if he's a little, inexperienced baby who knows nothing of the world? C'mon now.

    • There’s nothign new to this, even if the guy in his 40s fans would still be coddling him. I can say this cause I’ve experienced and have done it too lol
      My mind wasn’t in the right place ahahha

  • Summed it up to perfection. The only thing we all need to agree to is that every single party here has to carry some blame and responsibility. Obviously some more than others but no one is faultless in this situation. No one at all.

• I personally feel that the Managing Director is trying to save his own a$$ because why would an airport's personnel let private security control boarding passes and pester travellers with flashlights if a) there hadn't been a previous arrangement with the airport authorities (in which case the Managing Director is at serious fault), or b) the airport/lounge personnel is seriously incompetent or takes bribes (which also reflects bad on the management).
  Now I expect all this ruckus to die down soon-ish. I can't say I am a big fan of BWS but still this feels like a witch hunt and I don't have the appetite for it. I agree with Somebody, as in the 227 case, it seems that people are out to get BWS.I don't know if it's peer rivalry in this case though, it seems to be more a case of everyday people that can't stand to watch other people make it to fame.

  • Yes, it seems we are on the same page about this whole nonsense. I'm also sure those who are critical of BWS on this site are definitely not his fan and have their own faves, some of whom may be even getting on a witch hunt cos they
    are just so insecure with his meteoric rise to fame. Criticism of either media play or his excessive fan services or questioning his intelligence or insincere/lacking apologies has negative implications to his image. I'm sure These ppl wouldn't be so scathing about their own faves, nor would they have so much to gaslight their beloved actors if they fell into the same dilemma as BWS. LOL. The double standard is almost imminent.

    Ppl talked as if they had better virtue, moral standards, more savvy in dealing with PR, knew it all, and were smarter than BWS as if they were all statues of SmartyPants on higher pedestals holding torches of righteousness and justice. LMAO. I'm actually more entertained by these self-absorbed clownish SpartyPants than the so-called "scandal."