On her YouTube channel “Serriday”, Dal Shabet‘s Serri spilled disturbing details on how “sponsorships” – or the exchange of financial and materialistic support with sexual favors – work in the world of K-Pop and her personal experience with such “offers”.

After pointing out that everything is based on what she knows and experienced as an idol, Serri dished that there are entertainment agencies who actively connect their managing artists to such “sponsors”.

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To be honest, it is a matter of which agency you’re signed to. There are agencies which accept these sponsorship offers and the CEO passes on the suggestion to the agency artists. There are also sponsorship offers that reach the stars individually. — Serri

Serri clarified that while she was actively promoting as a part of Dal Shabet, she and her group-mates never had to attend any occasions that made them uncomfortable, thanks to their agency’s CEO being against sponsorships.

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Personally, my CEO never took the group out to bars or anything like that. — Serri

Unfortunately, Serri did have experience with receiving sponsorship offers via Instagram. As more K-Pop idols start up their own social media accounts to communicate better with their fans, such platforms have become a way for sponsorship offers to reach them as well.

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I’ve gotten a DM before. Everyone gets such DMs. It is up to the person who received the DM to either ignore it or get offended by it and do something about it. — Serri

The DM that Serri received detailed out the offer by listing the “assets” that the sponsor had and the “benefits” that Serri would reap from the relationship had she agreed to it.

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I check all my DMs. So I ended up checking this one too. It listed the person’s name, age, occupation, and other personal information. It also listed how much I’d be paid if I agreed to do this and what kind of advantages I could get out of it. — Serri

Serri also revealed that facing revengeful disadvantages in the industry for turning down sponsorship offers is an actual possibility. She dished at such “sponsors” for abusing the trainees and artists by threatening to meddle with their careers.

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There could be revenge for turning down a sponsorship offer… like getting fired from a role or being excluded from debuts. So it’s a nasty thing for them to do. Not that these artists and trainees wouldn’t be able to survive without the sponsorship money – but for their dreams and goals to be messed with and threatened like such, I think that’s horrible. — Serri

These unethical “sponsorships” have been a long running problem in the entertainment business. With the rise of platforms like YouTube and Instagram, more celebrities and content creators are being affected by the discreet “sex for money” offers.

Serri assured the viewers, however, that not everyone in the industry are bad. Like her own CEO, who did not fall to the sponsorship offers, Serri clarified that there are also trustworthy people who will try their best to guide the trainees and artists in the right direction.

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