Third K-pop star embroiled in sex video scandal

SEOUL: A K-pop star has quit after admitting he watched illicit sex videos received from another artist, his agency said Thursday, the third singer to be engulfed in a scandal sweeping South Korea´s music industry.

Yong Jun-hyung, 29, who is a member of boy band Highlight -- formerly known as Beast -- said he watched a video of singer Jung Joon-young having sex with women taken without their consent.

Jung, 30, was questioned by police on Thursday after admitting he shared the footage with other men, including mega K-pop star Seungri, who is also embroiled in a sex-for-investment criminal investigation.

Both Seungri -- a member of boy band BIGBANG -- and Jung, announced their retirement from show business earlier this week.

Yong "has watched the footage... and had an inappropriate conversation with (Jung)," the singer´s agency Around Us Entertainment said in a statement, adding Yong will leave the band Highlight on Thursday.

South Korea has been battling a growing epidemic of so-called "molka", or spycam videos -- mostly of women, secretly filmed by men.

As well as secretly filming women in schools, toilets and offices, "revenge porn" -- videos men take of themselves having sex with their exes or partners filmed without the women´s consent -- is believed to be equally widespread.

According to Han Sol, an activist at Flaming Feminist Action, such videos have long been watched and shared by South Korean men as a form of entertainment and a way to strengthen their "brotherly ties".

Yong, who has also worked as a record producer and actor, previously denied allegations that he had been involved in the ongoing K-pop sex scandal.

For South Korean women´s activists, the scandal, including the latest revelation, is unsurprising.

Thousands of women protested in Seoul last year on several occasions against spycam and revenge porn videos, as part of the country´s ongoing #MeToo movement.

"This case just shows that male K-pop stars are no exception when it comes to being part of this very disturbing reality that exploits women," women´s rights activist Bae Bok-ju told AFP.