“I know that the more you all show interest in me, the more rumors there will be. I am not pregnant, I did not get an abortion, nor am I leaving the group because of a marriage. There are a lot of celebrities who date publicly, and if I want to, I can just do the same and continue promoting, so I don’t know why my departure from the group is being associated with dating rumors. I’m the type to not have very many friends, so it’s true that he has been a big strength to me recently. If we continue to build our relationship, there is nothing wrong with dating, so I will be as honest as necessary and will continue to have a budding relationship with him. I decided my departure after a lengthy amount of thought, so please do not associate it with other issues.

Up until now, they have been pressuring me by saying that they will make the photos go public, but now [that the photos are out], I feel rather relieved. I will add another photo to accompany the photos and articles from today, and would like to explain myself.

It looks like I went on a couple vacation with just the two of us, but it was my first overseas trip with my older and younger sister. My younger sister, who is in her first year of middle school, likes to draw and likes animation, so I chose Japan in the hopes that the trip might help her future just a little bit. I’m the only one who can speak broken Japanese, and it was our first family trip to Japan, so I had to be in charge of everything, but for me, who has never been to Japan other than for schedules, it was very difficult for me to reserve things in Japanese and find attractions, so I asked an acquaintance whom I’ve known for the past 3 years. He led us as a guide on days when my family’s trip overlapped with his, and because on our way back, it was late and we had a lot of luggage, he helped us and bid us off, and that was when we were photographed, just the two of us.

Last time, during my first dating scandal, the reporter asked me about a situation where I was photographed with a phone camera, so I explained the above to them, so I can’t understand why they used such a scandalous headline, making it seem as if we went on a trip just the two of us.
Also, I have made known my inner thoughts about leaving the group to my label since a while back. Even last year, they asked me to think it through again while resting for a long time, so I did that. In the end, after asking my label CEO’s permission, I finally wrote my SNS post. Before I uploaded it, I shared the contents with my label, and erased content that the label did not want to go up on the post.

My stance on my departure is the same as my SNS post from yesterday, and I hope that the controversies that have come up after my departing SNS post will not affect the [AOA] members negatively. I apologize once again for delivering bad news to you all and worrying you this morning.”