Mentally Challenged Solo Artist Byun Baekhyun Almost Kidnapped

17-year-old Solo Artist Byun Baekhyun Almost Kidnapped, Again

Byun Baekhyun, Young Solo Artist, is reportedly abused by manager due to mental disabilities

Byun Baekhyun’s manager fired on accounts of abuse

Is Baekhyun being abused by this manager, too?

Kyungsoo sighed. Byun Baekhyun. How many times has he heard this kid’s name in the past couple of months? He really feels bad for the kid. He’s signed under YG Entertainment, whether or not it was his choice is another question, though, from the looks of things. That’s not the issue, though.

Baekhyun’s mentally challenged, disabled, handicapped, however you want to put it. And the company takes advantage of that. It’s sick, really. Though Kyungsoo can’t really say for sure that SM Entertainment wouldn’t do the same, he likes to think it wouldn’t (even though there’s a high chance that they probably would).

He doesn’t really understand why they made him debut as a solo artist. It would’ve been a whole lot better to put him in a group. Then again, he’s met some of the groups debuting these days and although they seem nice, they don’t really seem like they’re fit to have a mentally challenged kid in their group. They wouldn’t be experienced enough if something happened.

Which is why Kyungsoo is on the verge of going to his manager and asking if they can let the kid join EXO. Sure, it’s only EXO’s third year after debut and there are definitely other groups that could let him in but with the recent departure of some of EXO’s members, they could surely do with one extra.

That’s not to say that EXO is experienced enough to deal with a mentally challenged kid, but they did overcome the struggle with language barriers, so how hard can it be? And surely the kid isn’t as dumb as people make him out to be. Honestly it’s kind of sad that everyone labels him as ‘the mentally challenged kid’ – and he’s guilty of doing so himself – instead of Byun Baekhyun, the solo artist that writes all of his own music.

EXO’s also not inexperienced with abusive managers, so his heart really goes out to Baekhyun. He’s so small and oblivious to everything that it makes you want to protect him. To be perfectly honest, Kyungsoo didn’t initially believe it when the rumours about Baekhyun’s manager came out but once he saw it with his own eyes at last month’s music festival, he almost went over and punched the manager in the face.

How could someone hurt a kid like Baekhyun? All he does is try his best to make people smile. He’s so small and cute and doesn’t realise it when someone is trying to hurt him. It makes Kyungsoo wonder about his past. Was he always like that and never noticed when someone is hurting him or has he been sheltered?

“Soo? What are you doing?” The ever-familiar voice of Jongin reached his ear and snapped him from his musings.

“Oh – uh, just thinking. People are saying that Baekhyun is being abused by his new manager.”

Jongin’s eyebrows furrowed. It’s not a look any of the fans have ever seen, and Kyungsoo is pretty sure Jongin would want to keep it that way. He looks mean like that. “Didn’t he just get a new manager because the other one was abusing him?”

“Yeah.” Kyungsoo sighed for what seemed to be the twentieth time that day.

“. What is YG doing to that kid? Man, he should’ve just been put in a group.” Jongin snarled.

Leave it to Jongin to voice the exact thoughts he’d had not even three minutes prior. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

By now Jongin seemed thoroughly pissed off. Boy was he lucky that the fans didn’t know how short of a temper he had. “Maybe if he almost gets kidnapped again they might do something about it. Surely the kid would be safer with a bunch of twenty-something year olds. Or even a bunch of kids his age. Hell, a ten-year-old would be a better bodyguard than whatever they’ve given him now by the looks of it.”

“My thoughts exactly! They really need to do something about him before he seriously gets hurt. I don’t ever want to see a forty-something year old man beating up on a teenager – just because he couldn’t spell the same of the song he was supposed to sing – again.” Kyungsoo huffed and at that moment the rest of EXO walked through the door.

“Hey Jongin! What’s crawled up your ?” He looked over as Jongdae exclaimed with his overly loud voice that Kyungsoo had had no choice but grow accustomed to over the years. “Did you two fight?”

Now it was Jongin’s turn to sigh. “Nah. We were just talking about Baekhyun.”

“Baekhyun? Apparently he’s being abused by his manager again. Hasn’t SM tried to buy him before? If he’s being abused, then why didn’t he accept?” Sehun joined in this time. Kyungsoo was beginning to get sick of thinking about this.

“He probably didn’t understand the situation.” Junmyeon added casually. “Don’t look at me like that Yixing, you know I didn’t mean it that way.” Yixing still didn’t bother to hide his disapproval but let it go regardless. He never was one to start arguments. “He’s mentally challenged, don’t forget. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing but when you look at it from his perspective, he probably either didn’t understand the situation, thought this company would hurt him too – or more – or he was forced to decline. It isn’t really our position to be assessing the situation but as it stands I agree with what Kyungsoo all but shouted before we walked through the door; something needs to be done.” At this, Yixing seemed to approve and everyone slowly gathered in the lounge room, it seems they were opinionated about this.

“But what can we do about it? It’s not like we can go up to his manager and punch him in the face. We hold no power in this situation.” Minseok diverted his eyes to the floor.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Minseokkie.” Jongdae smirked. “We may hold no power over the companies but we certainly hold power over our fans, and even others’ fans. Maybe if we mention something about it on social media, our fans might react and then something might be done.”

Chanyeol’s eyes lit up at that. “We could use mine or Sehun’s Instagram account!”

Park Chanyeol, member of the recent hot topic, EXO, posts on twitter about standing up for innocent people – in particular those that are in abusive situations.

Fans seem to be certain that the artist is referring to Byun Baekhyun, a mentally challenged 17-year-old solo artist under YG Entertainment, who has recently gone through multiple managers who have all been fired on accounts of abuse.

The message in particular (see below) has caused fans of not only EXO to announce their support for Baekhyun and their disapproval of YG Entertainment’s handling of the situation.

“Hey EXO-Ls! Don’t forget to stand up for those who are innocent! Disabilities are not an excuse for abuse.”

They got the reaction they wanted. Immediately EXO-Ls, and even ARMYs and Carats were posting supportive messages for Baekhyun and calling out YG Entertainment for not taking care of their employees. YG Entertainment even ended up having to make a statement saying that they would ensure that it would not happen again.

Likely story. More like they won’t let it be known to the public again that Baekhyun’s being abused by YG Ent.

“So, what now?” Chanyeol asked, his deep voice filling the silence as they ate after a full-blown practice. “YG made a statement. The fans seem happy with it. I’m not. We all know that that’s not going to be the end of it. For all we know he might be getting more for everything because of this.”

They all let the reality of that sink in.

“What should we do?” Sehun said, seemingly rather panicked. “What if we caused him to get more hurt?”

“It wouldn’t be our fault, Sehunnie.” Junmyeon reassured him with a pat on the shoulder and a sheepish smile. “It’s not our fault. It’s their for hitting him in the first place, so don’t worry too much.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s being hit, Junmyeon.” Kyungsoo’s levelled voice filtered in from the kitchen as he made them dinner.

Junmyeon sighed. “I know. I just don’t know what we can do to help.”

“When’s the next time we’re able to see him? Is he going to be at Music Bank this weekend?” Jongin asked, not looking up from whatever he was doing on his phone.

“Probably. He usually goes even if he’s not supposed to. I think he likes to socialise with everyone seeing as though he’s only seventeen and is a solo artist.” Chanyeol pipes up from the couch.