PUBLISHED ONMarch 19, 2024 9:44 AMByDrima Chakraborty
South Korean singer-songwriter and convicted rapist Jung Joon-young was released from prison in the early morning of March 19, reported media outlet News1.
The 35-year-old was implicated in the Burning Sun nightclub scandal and was initially serving a six-year sentence after being convicted of gang-raping drunk and unconscious women with former FT Island guitarist Choi Jong-hoon. Joon-young was also convicted of distributing videos of the sexual acts taken without their consent on chatrooms.
The sentence was reduced to five years by the Seoul High Court after Joon-young submitted documents expressing his regret.
According to News1, Joon-young came out of prison wearing a hat and a face mask, and while he did talk to reporters, "left the scene without telling them anything special".
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Jong-hoon, 34, also had his sentence shortened after reaching a settlement with a victim and was released on parole in November 2021. In January, he attempted to make a comeback to showbiz by making an account on Japanese fan community platform Fanicon.
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RIP to Keanu Reeves' long, beautiful hair.
Rock band Dogstar posted a photo on Instagram on March 16, showing off their collaboration with an American brewery, but all eyes were on the 59-year-old actor and bassist's new hairdo.
Fans took the haircut in stride, commenting "Keanu looking awesome" and "His new haircut suits him well".
Dogstar was formed by Keanu, fellow actor Robert Mailhouse and Gregg Miller (later replaced by Bret Domrose) in 1991, but they disbanded in 2002. They reunited in 2023 after jamming together during the Covid-19 pandemic and released a new album in October that year.
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Netizens are excited about the return of reality show The Rap of China, but are equally as perplexed when they found out that contestants needed to submit urine tests to compete.
On March 17, contestant 3Bangz posted a vlog on Weibo sharing how it all went down — collection of pee included.
The video shows 3Bangz confirming his identity with staff members, being briefed on the procedure and even telling them "But I don't feel like peeing right now", to which he receives a bottle of mineral water.
After drinking his water, 3Bangz takes his phone into the toilet stall (thankfully the video is taken from his torso up) and shows viewers the urine he has collected.
He then transfers it into a small test tube and closes it, shakes it, and places it with other test tubes containing the urine of his fellow contestants.
"This is the first time I've watched a boy pee in a public toilet cubicle alone," a netizen commented. "It's too niche."
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Another wrote: "You don't have to film everything for us."
One contestant also wrote on Weibo that he was withdrawing due to "personal reasons", possibly connected to the urine testing from the hashtags he used.
While some netizens found the rules to be too strict, others weren't phased by it, adding that the producers "know how to prevent problems before they happen".
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The Rap of China 2024 — Overseas Young Blood, where overseas contestants compete to get onto the main show, is available on iQiyi.
drimac@asiaone.com
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