Former SISTAR member Soyou revealed the harsh reality of girl group trainees even after making their long-awaited debut.

On March 5th’s episode of Do You Want To Rest Today? Soyou shared how hard it was for girl group members to start receiving earnings.

She began by explaining that there was no base pay for girl groups and that all trainees carried debt.

Girl groups don’t receive any base pay. Why would they give us salary? It’s all debt. ㅡ Soyou

Comedian Kim Sook added that some girl group members aren’t paid even after 10 years. In response to the statement, Soyou explained that she (and SISTAR) were able to begin getting paid much more quickly than other girl groups, and that was after 9 months.

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We received it relatively quickly. We began receiving pay after about 9 months. ㅡ Soyou

The reason they were able to make money more quickly, according to Soyou, was because the members didn’t do much “tuning” and therefore, there was not much to take off.

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It’s because…our members didn’t do much tuning so there wasn’t much to take off. ㅡ Soyou

When asked whether plastic surgery added to their debt, Soyou explained that getting plastic surgery resulted in a lot more accumulated debt, but because SISTAR didn’t have this debt and also spent very little money, so they were left with a minimum amount of debt.

If you get a lot of plastic surgery, you accumulate much debt but we didn’t have that and we also lived in a studio apartment so we didn’t use much money. ㅡ Soyou

She added that they were given boiled chicken breast for lunch and dinner so that also contributed to their low expense.

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Watch the full video clip below: