Dating, Dissing Fans, And More — The Secret Account That Caused A Popular Idol’s Downfall

In 2017, the second season of the popular survival series Produce 101 aired. This time, instead of female trainees, male trainees were shown competing for their chance to debut in the winning group, now known as WANNA ONE. 

Many of the trainees who were not selected for the final group had enough popularity that many spin-off groups came after the show. One of the most popular, made up of trainees who ranked 20-30th in the show, was JBJ.

JBJ debuted in October 2017 and was planned to be a temporary group, disbanded in April 2018. Before this, the group saw significant popularity, including embarking on an Asian fan-meeting tour.

Following their disbandment, the members pursued careers in different ways, including Jin Longguo (also known as Kim Yongguk), who debuted as a solo artist in 2018.

Just months after his debut, the idol was first pulled into dating rumors with a member of SONAMOO, only for angered fans to expose content from his secret Instagram account. On the account, Jin Longguo had several posts deemed mocking fans and even calling them “delusional.”

• “Delusional”

• ???????????????? Says who???????????????????
• I’ll never do it.

Additionally, the account contained “lovestagrams” between him and an ex-girlfriend whom he dated while promoting with JBJ. One post even revealed that he had apparently lied about being sick to spend time with her.

Further worsening fans’ opinions of him were allegations that he threw away new and unopened fan gifts.

I’m a middle-aged man in my 30’s. Last night, I saw a whole bunch of envelopes while throwing out the trash and after taking a better look, I saw a bunch of new items in the trash. The trash pick-up was on its way so I took a few to see what it was and turns out, they were various items like letters written in Chinese and Japanese, bracelets, cosmetics, cookies, etc. It obviously looks like fan gifts but I wonder why they were thrown away. They’re all new items and most of the letters weren’t even opened. Anyway…I didn’t know who they were so I searched them up and looks like they’re disbanded. Maybe that’s why these were thrown away but anyway, what a waste.

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Jin Longguo later released an apology letter, but the damage had already been done. His second release, Mono Diary, only sold 6,256, a massive drop from the over 24,000 his debut album sold.

Many of his official accounts went silent at this time and have not been updated since as he focused his career in China. He released a few singles, including the most recent “Memories,” which currently has 4,100 views.

These days, Jin Longguo is primarily active of Douyin, where he shares song covers and appears to not be signed to any agency. He also did not join the other members of JBJ for their reunion, which was noted by fans.

The scandal appears to have left a lasting impact on his career and popularity that he has not yet recovered from.