Kwon Min-ah, better known by Mina, is a South Korean singer and actress. She is best known as a former member of the girl group AOA.
She was born on 21 September 1993 in Busan, South Korea. She auditioned for FNC in 2009, and her family moved from Busan to Seoul soon after. She is currently 27 years old.
Mina has acted on several television dramas, including Modern Farmer and All About My Mom. Learn more about her here!
Kwon Mina Introduces Her Boyfriend Via Instagram
The former AOA member Kwon Mina took to her Instagram account to introduce her boyfriend to the public on 26 June 2021.
In the post, she shared a picture of her and a mystery man together, along with a purple heart emoji in her caption.
Mina’s relationship even became more convincing when she positively responded to a fan asking in the comment, “Do you have a boyfriend? As long as you’re happy, I’m all right,” to which she said yes.
Kwon Mina with her boyfriend (©:Instagram/Kwon Mina)
Upon learning that the mystery man is indeed her boyfriend, many of her fans flooded the post’s comment box to congratulate her. And she seems to be happy and doing a lot better thanks to that.
Happy the situation it may be, some also allegedly claimed that the man in her picture was her friend’s boyfriend. That person claimed that when they were about to celebrate their 1000th day anniversary, it became difficult to contact him, and when spotted, he was on Mina’s Instagram.
Mina herself responded to the allegations saying that she doesn’t want to cause trouble for her non-celebrity boyfriend. She clarified that they only started dating after cleaning up everything from her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. And she further suggested the alleger that “you to post after knowing the actual facts.”
Kwon Mina Was Bullied And Abused
Kwon Mina took to her Instagram Live on 7 March 2021 to reveal a shocking ordeal that she faced in her childhood.
The star revealed that a famous artist sexually abused and bullied her when she was still in school. Due to her family’s poor financial condition, she forced herself to do part-time jobs and eventually drop out of school.
The girl then recalled herself accompanying her friend to an isolated place against her will where she was physically assaulted before being sexually harassed and eventually get raped by the male, who was in an empty house at the time.
According to translations by allkpop, Mina said, “When I used to live in Busan, my family was not well off so my livelihood was difficult. When I was in middle school, I was hit with beer bottles by the sunbaes and fought with them. I was sexually assaulted by a male sunbae. If I say his name, everyone will know who he is.”
She further added that her friend’s uncle scolded the people who did bad things to her when he saw them. And the perpetrators “apologized to me.” And she eventually covered up the incident since he came up to apologize to her.
But this was only one of the abuses she faced during her livelihood. Back in 2020, she stepped up to the other bullying victims to speak up and seek help by sharing the abuses she faced on her side. She then made bullying allegations against AOA’s then group leader Shin Ji Min popularly known as Jimin, for over 10 years. She also wrote in her Instagram post how she had tried to take her life on several occasions following the bullying incidents.
She also wrote in a once deleted Instagram post that around the time of her dad’s passing, she cried once in “the waiting room” but was later dragged to the wardrobe of the waiting room because one of the older members told her that she was ruining everyone’s mood. Mina then revealed the older member to be Jimin and being a victim of the bullying for over 10 years, which led her to leave AOA and ended her contract with her agency, FNC entertainment, because she could no longer take it.
“Thanks to unnie [referring to Jimin], I’ve been eating multiple tablets of medicine a day and my left wrist is so cut up that the nerves aren’t working and it stings and hurts. But seeing my mom, I have to live on, I have to earn money. So I am going for scar treatments diligently and although I still have nightmares,” Mina’s post read.
Later on 8 August of that year, she posted what appears to be like a suicide note on her Instagram post addressing the bullying incidents she has faced and even wrote about how her then-agency had not properly paid her for over the years. She called out Shin Jimin, who reportedly bullied her during her time with the group Seolhyun, and FNC Entertainment CEO Han Sung Ho.
She further mentioned, “Do you even know the kind of people who’ll push a sane person’s death? I’m happy, but I want to go. It’s painful here. Don’t come to my funeral when I die. You’re dirty. When I die, I’ll torment you all. I can’t live with this evil, okay.”
Furthermore, she posted a worrying Instagram post which is now deleted from her official account. After she posted her wrist’s cuts, her agency immediately took action and rushed the singer to the hospital in an emergency room.
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After coming into the public eyes with a flash due to her abuse incidents, she disappeared later on. Nearly a year later, she came out through her Instagram post, where she posted a dazzling photo of herself which don’t reflect her past bullied self. She admitted, in the post, that she was still reeling from the consequences of her traumatic past.
“I’ve seen psychiatrists since I was 20 or 21. It was five or six years ago when I realized I couldn’t stand that person [who traumatized her] any more. I changed my psychiatrists in March 2018… now, medication no longer works,” she wrote.
Kwon Mina Net Worth And Career
After all the incidents seemed to have settled down, the former AOA member Kwon Mina sat down in an interview where she talked about her trainee days in the industry. She mentioned being faced with the biggest slump of learning the bass while she was a trainee. She also felt having to be a burden for other band members due to herself.
Even doing the best she can, she was hated by Jimin and bullied continuously. She started her career with the group AOA in July 2012, but she left the group in 2019 and left her former agency, FNC Entertainment. Bullying was the main cause of her leave. She later mentioned that Jimin apologized to her, but she did not accept it because she never truly meant her apology and was rather a forced one.
After leaving AOA and FNC Entertainment, Mina officially joined O& Entertainment, signing an exclusive contract in July 2019. Besides her career in the music industry, she made her acting debut in 2013 with the drama Adolescence Medley. Since then, she has appeared in various dramas, including Modern Farmer, All About My Mom, Hospital Ship, and Mystery Queen 2.
The idol-turned-actress also terminated her contract with Woori Actors, which was just signed three months prior, in September of 2020. Woori Actors’ management of Mina’s activities officially ended after her birthday on September 21, when the agency handled the receipt and delivery of fans’ gifts for the star. Mina, as well as the Woori Actors’ representative, released the news on the internet about the contract termination as Mina decided to take a break from her career.
Mina seems to be doing well even after her leave from her former band and agencies. Fans are now eagerly waiting for her return to the entertainment industry.