debut
Through the majority of the 2010s, there were three major K-Pop groups who dominated the globe. While the first two are obvious—BTS and BLACKPINK—the third group largely contributing to K-Pop’s current fame is EXO. Originally a 12-member group under SM Entertainment, a major Korean entertainment companies, EXO debuted with two subgroups in 2012. There was EXO-K, 6 Korean members who sang all their songs in Korean, and EXO-C, 4 Chinese members and 2 Korean members, who sang all their songs in Mandarin.Â
past legal management issues
Over the years, EXO has faced a multitude of legal, contractual, and emotional issues with their members. The group debuted in 2012 and quickly rose to fame, racking up 48 awards by 2014, including wins in major categories like Top New Artist, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Worldwide Icon of the Year. So, it came as a shock when, in 2014, Kris Wu and Luhan (two Chinese members of EXO-C) chose to leave the group and file lawsuits against SM Entertainment. One year later, Huang Zitao, another Chinese member, also chose to leave the group, and sue SM Entertainment for exploitation. They all cited being persecuted against on the basis of overworked scheduling, nationality, and unequal pay. Overall, they felt that as Chinese members, the company had wrongfully discriminated against them for profit compared to their Korean groupmates.Â
EXO faced greater internal stress with the hiatus of the sole remaining Chinese member, Yang Zixing, commonly known by his stage name, Lay, in 2017. This was due to the desire to focus on his solo career in China and the present political tensions between China and Korea. After years of being unaffiliated with the group but still contractually connected to the company, Lay finally left SM Entertainment in 2022 after his 10-year contract expired.
current legal issues with exo-cbx (chen, baekhyun, xiumin)
In 2023, EXO went through yet another series of lawsuits when members Chen, Baekhyun, and Xiumin (all three a part of a vocal subunit EXO-CBX), decided to take action against SM Entertainment. Filing a lawsuit based on staggered earnings, unfair contracts, and unfulfilled requests for data accounting, the three filed a joint termination. The company responsible for their solo activities, INB100, also filed against SM over music distribution and royalty fees, but did not prevail in court against the larger company SM Entertainment.
With all these times of uncertainty, EXO-L’s (EXO’s fan base), have faced frustrations over the ambiguity of their favorite group’s member status, myself included. Every time an EXO comeback is announced, fans are left wondering: “9 members? 8 members? 6 members?” It has become a guessing game for fans on trying to determine how many members EXO truly is. It is even more disappointing when EXO’s catch phrase—a common practice for K-Pop groups to use when introducing themselves—is quite literally: “We are One”, when recently it has felt like anything but.
upcoming activities and fan response
So, in early October when SM Entertainment released a statement of an end-of-year fan meeting, concert, and early 2026 EXO album release, fans were overjoyed. However, the group would not be complete after the past two years of EXO-CBX’s legal troubles against SM. Chen, Baekhyun, and Xiumin lost their lawsuit in court due to a lack of evidence on their grievances; SM chose to leave the three out of all three upcoming activities, although they had stated their desires to still promote with their other groupmates. SM stated that the only request made to CBX was that they “pay the 10% of their revenue from individual activities,” which has “not yet been fulfilled.”
Obviously this news has deeply disappointed fans, who had been looking forward to seeing the group come back together for another album, especially since the last release was in 2021. There is even greater disappointment as this new album will feature Lay, despite him being no longer affiliated with SM Entertainment. This choice to include Lay while rejecting Chen, Baekhyun, and Xiumin has caused deep outrage to the CEOs and managers at SM Entertainment, leading to stock performance to drop by over 14% in the last 5 days. It is clear that fans are not happy about this decision, and any search on TikTok or X on “EXO-CBX scandal” would corroborate this thinking! As a fan myself, I can also honestly say that I am disappointed in this development, and probably will not be paying much attention to the release…
future implications?
SM Entertainment’s choice to leave EXO-CBX out of upcoming EXO promotion has been met with diminishing returns to profit and fan outrage towards the company. Looking ahead, this choice begs the following: Will SM Entertainment include CBX in future activity solely for profit maximization? Would this appease fans for inclusion or risk further reputation issues of being a money-grab? Or… will they stick with the CBX ban on EXO promotions and continue to lose capital?