ILLIT Copying NewJeans Controversy Continues to Erupt

Right from their debut, Belif Lab's rookie girl group, ILLIT, whose music was produced by HYBE's President, was embroiled in a controversy over plagiarism of choreography from NewJeans and LE SSERAFIM - girl groups from the same group.

The choreography for ILLIT's title track "Magnetic" was accused of being similar to the choreography of Kpop hits like "Fearless" by LE SSERAFIM, or "Attention" and "Ditto" by NewJeans. These are all famous songs by these two groups, so it's not hard to immediately recognize the similarities in some of the special moves.

ILLIT's first cover photo in Super Elle magazine has the same layout and style of the members as NewJeans' look in their debut MV "Attention".

ILLIT was accused of plagiarizing NewJeans when it was released at the end of March. Photo: Naver — ILLIT was accused of copying NewJeans' image and choreography when they debuted at the end of March. Photo: Naver

In particular, when the internal conflict between ADOR - the management company of NewJeans group and HYBE group broke out, CEO Min Hee Jin - the main producer for NewJeans group - directly declared: "ILLIT copied NewJeans in all areas of entertainment activities, from hair, makeup, costumes, choreography, photo shoot ideas, video recording and appearing in events".

Recently, on Korean online communities, audiences continued to point out details showing that ILLIT blatantly copied NewJeans.

A post on theqoo titled “ILLIT’s management seems to be copying the smallest details of NewJeans” attracted 83,000 reads and nearly 1,000 comments.

Another post titled “NewJeans’ signature design has become ILLIT’s” also attracted 105,000 reads and nearly 1,000 comments on May 12.

The audience pointed out the details that ILLIT copied NewJeans from style, design to development strategy such as: Logo design combining pixel font and basic font, album cover and sticker design, credit under MV, highlight choreography, attending fashion events before debut, advertising after debut, taking hanbok photos with similar style, first magazine cover after debut (Super Elle)...