AOA Seolhyun's Past Interview About Her Honest Opinion On Her "Sexy" Star Reputation Resurfaces

Since AOA blessed the new TV show Queendom with their veteran idol-ing skills, Seolhyun‘s past interviews about her reputation in the K-Pop world as a “sexy icon” have been resurfacing.

Especially after the latest episode, featuring AOA’s most charismatic style, AOA fans are realizing Seolhyun has been waiting years for this kind of opportunity to let her real self shine.

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In this interview, Seolhyun talked about that one particular cellphone advertisement that really blew things out of the water for her.

While at first, she was grateful and amazed by the love and support, she soon came to question what it had done to her “image” to the public.

At first, I was amazed and excited because people began to notice me… But since that, the public has wanted to see only that side of me. Just that and nothing else. It troubled me for a while. I began to question why I had to wear cropped tops all the time. I wanted to try other things too, you know? The cropped top Seolhyun is me too, yes… but I have so much more to me than just that.

— Seolhyun

Then Seolhyun also discussed the downside she had to face while being that sexy icon. She faced a tremendous amount of hate comments about herself. She had to fight her fair share of battles against maliciously photoshopped pictures and nasty rumors. Seolhyun looked back to the time and revealed what made her stay firm and unforgiving throughout the process.

I wanted to show everyone that if you do something illegal, you will be punished. I wanted to make sure I set up an example case that will help prevent the same thing from happening to others. I don’t know if I could be of any power, but that’s what I meant to do.

— Seolhyun

For Seolhyun, it wasn’t easy since debut. Because of her beauty and glamour, she had haters sexually harass her online.

When I debuted, I used to have tons of GIFs go viral that only zoomed in on a certain part of my body. Some were bad enough that I can’t discuss. I wouldn’t ever wish that on anyone – especially my hoobae (junior) groups but they’re facing it all the same. We all think it’s unfair and not right, but we also think there’s nothing that can be done about our treatment. That breaks my heart.

— Seolhyun

Now, Seolhyun is stronger than ever before. She is not another “sexy icon” in the industry – but a real star with her own identity and goals. Seolhyun has made up her mind that she won’t ever stand for such “generalization” or the industry’s habit of simply sexualizing the female idols to promote them – not for herself and not for anyone.