On October 11, SM Entertainment announced that male idol Seunghan will return to activities with the group RIIZE after nearly 1 year of hiatus due to a series of personal scandals.
SM said: “Seunghan admits that his past actions were wrong. He has halted activities for nearly a year to deeply reflect and apologize to the other members and fans.
We also recognize that Seunghan's past actions were not consistent with his role as an artist, so we spent a lot of time considering the timing of his return to activities.
We have put a lot of effort into planning for RIIZE even before the group debuted. We believe that the next chapter of RIIZE will be even more meaningful with all 7 members together. After many discussions with the staff and members about the direction of the group, we have decided that Seunghan will return to the group.
We plan to gradually let Seunghan participate in some activities that were planned for November and will meet fans again.”
Seung Han also wrote a handwritten letter to sincerely apologize to fans, promising to try harder in the future.
However, SM's move immediately faced criticism from the RIIZE fan community. Fans said that the company made a mistake in allowing an idol with many scandals to return to activities, affecting the other members.
On the evening of October 11, fan groups took turns sending protest wreaths to SM headquarters.
The online community theqoo was abuzz with the news that fans had placed 1,000 wreaths in front of the company's headquarters. The scene was so shocking that many people compared the space in front of SM's headquarters to a "funeral home."
The funeral wreaths carry many messages such as "Hong Seunghan, get lost", "Seunghan, get out of RIIZE", "Leave RIIZE", "RIIZE will be active with 6 members"...
RIIZE's official fan community stated, "Hong Seunghan's return to RIIZE is a failure that cannot be justified logically or morally.
In response to the announcement of Seunghan's comeback made on October 11, BRIIZE - fans of RIIZE who love the 6 members (Shotaro, Eunseok, Sungchan, Wonbin, Sohee, Anton) condemned SM Entertainment's decision.
Before that, right before the group RIIZE debuted in early September, Seunghan revealed intimate photos and livestreamed with his girlfriend when they were trainees. He was also exposed for many other scandals such as smoking on the street, causing his girlfriend to have an abortion, badmouthing his seniors...
In response to strong opposition from fans, in November 2023, Seunghan announced a temporary hiatus and RIIZE has continued to operate as a 6-member group to this day.
