Inside K-pop's darkest scandal: Victim of Seoul's Burning Sun club recalls ... trends now

A victim of sexual assault in one of South Korea's most horrific scandals has recounted her harrowing experience in a new BBC Eye documentary.

Multiple celebrities, K-pop idols, and police officials were arrested and charged over their involvement with the Burning Sun nightclub controversy, which was embroiled in prostitution, drug trafficking and corruption after being exposed in 2019.

At the centre of the investigation were group chat messages leaked from the phone of singer Jung Joon-young - which included graphic texts that saw men, some of whom were closely linked to the club, laughing about gang raping women and gleefully recounting 'the sound of her skull cracking when she fell'.

Staff who worked at the Burning Sun - which had famed musician Lee Seung-hyun as a director - also spoke to a new BBC programme, called for a Burning Sun: Exposing the Secret K-pop Chat Groups, about being told to facilitate the drugging and sexual assault of female guests for 'VIP' attendees.

One victim, who was a regular guest at the Burning Sun and wishes to stay anonymous, recounted the awful details of her assault for the documentary. 

'When I went to Burning Sun, we would get a table for ourselves, all girls,' she explained.

'It was after I'd had one or two drinks perhaps? I went to the toilet with my friend and said "I feel weird today, I'm getting drunk really quickly. I think I shouldn't drink anymore." Then we came back to our seats.'

However, then the young woman suddenly found herself on a bed in a hotel room - with a man who had given her drinks at the club. 

'He suddenly ran at me and forced my clothes off,' she revealed. 'I tried to scream but he covered my mouth.

'And I tried not to get attacked. So I keep trying to get up, right? And from above, he kept sitting on me and pressing me down.

'Because I was screaming, he covered my mouth with both hands. He kept shoving me down as if he was giving me CPR.

'I couldn't breathe. My mouth hurt so much - but because he was sitting on me my ribs were hurting too.

'However much I struggled, it didn't work. So I gave up.'

The victim admitted that she thought the man was 'going to kill her'. 

'I was in so much pain,' she continued. 'But he wouldn't stop and he kept trying to do the deed. So I just gave up and just lay there.

'I felt so sick. I grabbed the rubbish bin and vomited. I vomited and I knelt down on the floor and begged. I begged him to send me home. 

'I said I missed my mum so much. I cried and begged.'

The assaulter told her he'd 'let her go if she took a photo'. 

The victim said: 'He told me to smile but I couldn't. I wanted to cover my face. Because he didn't let me, I just made a peace sign then I rushed out. But my memory of that is hazy.'

While she reported the rape to the police, her assaulter claimed they had consensual sex, and used the photo as 'evidence'. He was allowed to leave Korea.

The shocking BBC documentary also looked at the graphic messages between idols in KakaoTalk chatrooms, taken from singer Jung Joon-young's phone, between 2015 and 2016.

The leak of the texts was tied to the Burning Sun scandal because allegations from the chatrooms were coming out at the same time that the club was being exposed.

Burning Sun owner Lee Seung-hyun - commonly known as Seungri and dubbed the 'Great Gatsby of South Korea' for his lavish party lifestyle - was also in the group chat.

One excerpt from the messages discussed a horrific sexual assault from March 2016, which took place in the city of Daegu.

'One woman was raped while she was unconscious,' journalist Kang Kyung-yoon - who was the reporter that broke news of the leaked chatrooms, told the documentary.

'They say, she was so drunk she almost cracked her head.'

Jung and Choi had gang-raped the woman - with friends and members of the chatroom present. 

One member, known only as Park, wrote: 'Oh, I got so scared yesterday, thinking that the girl had a real concussion. Sound of her skull cracking when she fell. Brother Jung and I were really surprised.'

Jung reacted with the laughing tears emoji.

'Most of their fans are female but these chats had exposed the real face of these men who were projecting a gentle image,' Kang added.

'But those faces weren't simple or plain. They were so disgusting, playing around with women as if they were toys and incapacitating them to insult them, to loathe them... they were bragging and sniggering about that as if they were trophies.'

Kang explained that when she was looking at the messages - which were shared via a whistleblower - she also worryingly saw evidence of a police presence that allowed the members of the group chat to get away with crime.