Group KOYOTE's Shinji revealed an anecdote that she did not receive settlements despite enduring a brutal schedule early in her debut.
On the 8th, a video titled 'You say you didn't get paid even after doing 13~15 events? KOYOTE Shinji's chronicle' was released on the YouTube channel 'How are you?!?'.
In the released video, Shinji looked back on her chronicle from her debut days to the present and shared behind-the-scenes stories. Shinji said she debuted without a trainee period, recalled suffering from a stylist's appearance insults and extreme dieting, and said she was so busy in the early debut days that she did 14 events a day but did not receive settlements for the first and second albums because of breakeven issues, and that she began to make money in earnest after the third album.
Regarding her debut process, Shinji said, "There was no trainee period. I had been entering song festivals since middle school, and in high school a teacher said, 'Someone at a recording studio in Incheon wants to develop you,' so I made a demo tape and sent it to three places. I passed, met a composer, recorded immediately and debuted."
She added, "I didn't receive settlements in the early debut days. There is something called a breakeven point, so for the first and second albums I didn't receive a single penny. Even if I did 14 schedules a day, I didn't receive any money. From the third album I received a signing bonus and started to earn money. That's when I owned a car for the first time."
Shinji also revealed stress related to her appearance. She said, "During my peak, there's a round thing on the microphone so spit won't fly, and I didn't move my face away much from it when on screen because I had recently had double eyelid surgery. I originally had inner double eyelids, but when I was tired they would come undone. One day at the company the stylist's eyes looked good so I asked where they were done and was told Myeongdong, so I did it too. The first album did better than expected, and because we had to prepare the second album the swelling didn't go down and I started promotions right away."
Shinji also revealed behind-the-scenes of appearing on 'Unstoppable High Kick.' She said, "The setting of being a divorced woman and a mother of a child was so shocking. But when Lee Soon-jae and Na Moon-hee said they would do it, they insisted we had to do it. I had never learned acting, and they said the character was created with me in mind, but my biggest regret was not doing acting and being too much myself."
She continued, "The hardest time was when I filmed with Chun Myung Hoon at the Han River; I was wearing heels and a skirt and running, my feet were freezing so much I cried. It was the coldest day in the world. I suffered a lot emotionally, but 20 years later many people understand Shinji and support me, so I'm grateful," she said.
Meanwhile, Shinji will marry singer Moonwon, who is seven years her junior, on May 7.
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