Let’s talk about YG Treasure Box.

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(Written March 13, 2025)

KKP!:  YG Treasure Box was UNREAL. 

Right after watching the YG Treasure Box finale, I had to take a break from writing my recap to go to my dental cleaning appointment.  While in the waiting room, I figured I’d use the time to pull out my phone and research what happened to Treasure after the show.  

By the time they called me into the room, I was a confused mess.  Here is a partial transcript of my appointment:

Me (while the hygenist is cleaning my teeth):  Unf onf feefh dis!
Hygenist:  What won’t I believe?
Me:  Za gruf cuddin dezu cuz seeoh ent ta dale!
Hygenist:  The CEO went to jail?
Me:  Un expeddushns uh too aye!
Hygenist:  Yes, well, sometimes high expectations cause stress for a group before they can debut.  Rinse, please.

When I got home and read some more, I realized it wasn’t just YG Entertainment mismanagement that caused problems for the group.  But let’s start there, since that’s what caused the delay with the debut.

After the finale aired on January 18, 2019, the final three members were revealed to be Jeongwoo, Jaehyuk, and Hyun Suk.  So after an awkward and unnecessary weeklong delay, we finally had our seven members.  They were scheduled to debut sometime between May and July of 2019.  So far, so good.

According to the Kpop Wiki, right after the members were announced, CEO Yang decided to bring some of the eliminated members back from the show and form a second group called Magnum.  This group consisted of Jihoon, Yoshi, Yoon Bin, Mashiho and his back flips, Asahi, and Doyoung.  So at least now all our future Treasure members are back in the game.  CEO Yang was going to debut this group later in 2019, after Treasure debuted.  

It must have been hell to work for CEO Yang during this time.

CEO Yang:  We’re forming a new boy band!  It will have five members!
Assistant:  Great idea, sir!
CEO Yang:  No wait, ten members.  No, five!  No, seven!
Assistant:  Sir, we’re already halfway through filming the series.
CEO Yang:  Okay, seven then.  Wait, what happened to the other trainees?
Assistant:  You eliminated them, sir.
CEO Yang:  Bring two of them back for the finale!
Assistant:  O….kay.
CEO Yang:  What a great finale!  How many final group members have we announced so far?
Assistant:  Four, sir.  You’re supposed to announce the other three after commercial.
CEO Yang:  Nope!  We’ll end the show now and announce the rest next week.
Assistant:  …
CEO Yang:  What happened to the other trainees?
Assistant:  (swallowing a handful of Xanax)  You eliminated them, sir.  Remember?
CEO Yang:  Bring them back!  We’ll have TWO bands!
Assistant:  Bring them back yourself.  I quit.

I’m pretty sure the above scene isn’t completely fictional.  After both bands were announced, CEO Yang announced that the Magnum and Treasure would be promoting together.  And separately.  Then he said, you know what?  Two groups is too much of a hassle.  Let’s debut them all together as Treasure 13.

Just as I’m starting to wonder if maybe the real reason the CEO went to prison was because he was snorting coke by the bucket, he then announced that the entire debut was put on hold because of a series of scandals.  Scandals, plural.   According to Koreaboo, they included (settle in folks):

March 2019:  Remember early in these recaps when we talked about Seungri from BigBang and how he was involved in the Burning Sun scandal?  Around this time, disposal trucks began showing up at YG Entertainment, and CEO Yang had to release a statement saying they were NOT shredding documents.  Then, in a completely unrelated matter, the cops found that CEO Yang owned nightclubs that were allegedly evading taxes.

April 2019:  CEO Yang is accused of receiving preferential treatment regarding bank loans.  He allegedly borrowed the equivalent of almost nine million dollars USD and used the YG Entertainment building as collateral.  Keep in mind, this was when he was putting two bands together instead of just the one, so at this point I have a theory that he was desperately trying to bring in more money to pay back these loans.

May 2019:  This is around the time that the original Treasure from the show was supposed to debut.  Here’s where CEO Yang now gets hit with a flood of charges involving solicitation of prostitutes.  He was accused of hiring prostitutes for VIPs in the industry and giving them (the prostitutes) (and who knows, maybe the VIPs) expensive Chanel bags as part of the payment.  He sent an email to all the staff at YG Entertainment, denying the claims.

June 2019:  This is where EVERYTHING blew up.  Not only is CEO Yang still fighting off charges about the prostitutes and the loans and the tax evasion and the document shredding, but here’s where he’s accused of witness tampering in the case of iKON’s B.I’s drug use.  Also, PSY got dragged into this mess.  Remember the “Gangnam Style” guy?  Well, he AND our CEO were accused of hiring prostitutes at an adult entertainment place during something called an “alcohol gathering.”  It was at this point that the CEO resigned from YG Entertainment in order to spend more time with his prostitutes.  LAWYERS.  I meant lawyers. 

Lots more happened after this, including PSY having to cancel concerts because of the fan backlash AND the CEO being accused of illegal gambling on top of everything else.  And to no one’s surprise, this is when YG Entertainment ALLEGEDLY had a problem with their trainees trying to leave the company.  In August 2019, it was reported that all the trainees from both YG Treasure Box and Produce 101 had left the agency.  YG Entertainment denied this.  This is the one thing I actually believe them on, as today, Treasure is still signed with YG.

So. Where did that leave our Treasure/Magnum/Treasure 13 boys?  Their debut was delayed through the rest of 2019 while all this was going on.  Group member Yoon Bin cancelled his contract in December 2019. 

In January of 2020, it was announced that Treasure 13 was moving forward.  (The timeline is a bit sketchy here.  Different websites have different timelines, and I understand completely because trying to follow all this gave me a migraine.  Also keep in mind that COVID was hitting around this time, which I’m sure contributed to more delays.)

Treasure began releasing music and promotional material in January and February of 2020, but in May, Yedam began releasing solo material.  YG Entertainment told everyone who would listen that this was TOTALLY part of the plan and that they’d been producing solo music for Yedam before Treasure was even formed.  (And yet they still put him through the survival show.  Let’s just say I have my doubts.)  Finally the debut for the group was announced for August 2020.

The good news is that the debut was a huge success, despite the insane pressure the group was experiencing at this point.  They became the fastest Korean act to chart on the Billboard Social 50 (which ranks the most active musicians on social media) and logged nearly 1.5 million subscribers on their YouTube channel.

They released music and did a web drama and fan meeting, and everything was going incredibly well.  However, Mashiho and Yedam went on hiatus from the group in early 2022 and announced their departure later that year.  That leaves Treasure as the 10-member group we know today.  (I want to add that Mashiho and Yedam got out just in time, before Treasure had to film Shining Solo.)

The group members had a couple of individual scandals that hurt them.  Hyun Suk was accused of cultural appropriation in 2023 because of a braided hairstyle he wore in a video, and Haruto was accused of homophobic behavior in 2024 that lost the group a lot of fans.  However, neither of these scandals seem to have slowed the momentum.  While I was recapping this series, Treasure announced their first US Tour, which begins in less than a month in New York.

As for CEO Yang, he was originally acquitted of threatening the informant in the iKON drug case, but in 2023 the acquittal was overturned.  He spent six months in prison and was under a one-year probation, which has been completed as I write this. 

He returned to YG Entertainment in late 2023 and helped produce the girl group BABYMONSTER.  He made a not-at-all-creepy statement to the press about how the youth of the girls in the group resonated with him because he has a daughter their age.  Mr. Yang is in his 50s.  The youngest member of BABYMONSTER is fifteen years old.  I need all the showers.

There is probably so much more to be said, but I’m done.  I have spent almost 12 straight hours covering the finale and then writing this wrap-up.

There will always be a special place in my heart for Treasure, and I’m very excited to read the upcoming reviews and see the TikToks from their first American tour.  After everything they have been through, they deserve all the love and success.  I will always keep them on my radar.

Right now, I need sleep.  Tomorrow I’ll start working on Debut’s Plan, a new survival show from Starship Entertainment, the company that brought us Monsta X.  In fact, some members of Monsta X will be coaching and judging on Debut’s Plan.  The show will steam on YouTube, or maybe it’s already started.  I’m too tired to go look.

Huge, HUGE amounts of love to aplateoflasagna and jeongjeongii on Tumblr for so much of the background information on Treasure, as well as feedback on these recaps and the ones for Shining Solo.  Now let’s all get some sleep.

 

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