Lucas Wong Wants a Second Chance. Will Fans Allow It?

After serious accusations sent the idol on hiatus in 2021, he’s re-emerged with an apology and a documentary. But questions about the truth remain.

Lucas Wong, 2024, SM Entertainment

For nearly two decades, the K-Pop industry’s solution for dealing with an idol who engages in bad behavior is to send them on hiatus. After enough months pass by and as the news cycle moves on, the idol will return to their group, always softened and humbled by their behavior. Their comeback resembles a courtship between lovers: There is, first, the handwritten apology, which announces the hiatus. After months away, an idol might make a soft return to social media, often thought to be a way for companies to test the waters. In the final stage which marks the imminent comeback, a second apology is released. This one is remorseful and speaks thoughtfully about what the idol has learned upon their time away. 

When Red Velvet’s leader Irene was sent on hiatus after being accused of verbally abusing staff members, she demurred in a letter to fans, “I didn’t know that my methods of communication or my expressions could become a problem, and I just thought that everyone has different ways of communicating.” Her “communication”, she promised, had improved, which roughly meant she wouldn’t yell at her staff anymore. Intent to end the letter on a positive note, she abruptly switches topics. “Although it’s late,” she wrote with the off-handedness that you might remark on the weather, “Happy new year.” 

But what happens when an idol is accused of something much more serious? In August 2021, Lucas, a rapper in WayV, SuperM and NCT, was accused by several women of seveeral types of misconduct. According to the women, he often complained that he made no money as an idol, so he needed them to buy him accessories or clothes, even cigarettes. There was also an accusation of cheating. 

Yet because these accusations involved questions of sex and power, Lucas faced a serious problem. For many fans, these details were too uncomfortable to continue supporting the idol. In the weeks following Lucas’ hiatus, trades and sales for the idol’s photocards skyrocketed. 

While many hiatuses last no longer than six months, some idols are cleared of their wrongdoings within weeks. But even for a hiatus due to bad behavior, Lucas’ was exceptionally long. Often, a company will take action by kicking a member out or, if the accused is innocent, by suing those who slandered the idol. SM did neither. 

Instead, six months after his first apology, Lucas posted for the first time on Instagram with a photo of an ocean. He only posted once more that year. In 2023, as a battle for ownership of SM broke out, Chris Lee, the company’s music production director and A&R executive, posted photos with Lucas – the first time fans had laid eyes on him in over a year. A comeback felt imminent, but then, SM tore apart at the seams. Lee Soo-man, the company’s founder, was pushed out after a struggle between Kakao Entertainment and Hybe for ownership. But Lucas’ return began to seem more likely as he was re-introduced on Bubble, a messaging app for idols. 

In May, after Lucas announced that he would depart WayV and NCT, his future seemed clear: He would debut as a solo artist. 

Lucas in a promotional image from 2021.

Perhaps SM Entertainment slow-walked the star back into public view because of how stomach churning the accusations were to fans. But in February a two-part film was released that signified Lucas was on the verge of a new debut.  

Titled “Freeze” and “Unfreeze”, the film is less of a documentary than a promotional ad for the new version of Lucas. Once styled as a clean cut heartthrob, Lucas has now grown his hair out, nearly reaching his shoulders. He has more tattoos, including one on his arm, while his style has shifted from the futuristic style of NCT to a gritty form of streetwear. He looks remarkably human, which feels precisely how SM Entertainment wants us to view him. 

In “Freeze” Lucas talks vaguely about how his life changed after he was put on hiatus. "I stayed only in my room for six months, I didn’t want to do anything. I had a lot of thoughts. I had terrible thoughts,” he explains in a soft tone that is supposed to reinforce the severity of this topic. “I was so sorry I wanted to die. In all seriousness, my hair kept falling out. I didn’t even eat properly because I had no appetite.” He continues, “Honestly, it was all my fault, had I not done that, this wouldn’t have happened." But, interestingly, Lucas never details what was his fault. 

As “Freeze” details the stress and shame Lucas felt, SM inserts key players to corroborate or expand his story. When he meets with Chirs Lee, he says, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” After Lee brightly asks if Lucas took the hiatus to rest and exercise, Lucas lets out a deep sigh. Lucas’ manager provides a grimmer take on the idol’s mental health. “You were so stressed at the time. All of a sudden, you never left your room for half a year,” he says over a meal.

At one point, Lucas admits to his manager that he misses his members, although he feels there is still resentment from them.  “I made so many memories with the members,” he says without ever naming the group. “Those memories pop up in my head every now and then. I really want to be with them.”

In “Unfreeze”, Hong Kong becomes the supporting character in Lucas’ redemption arc. Shot on film in grainy color, Lucas brings SM’s cameras through the streets of Hong Kong, a city that is vibrant and alive with its own cultural history. This is Lucas’ home, and up until now, it is a place that he has spoken very little about. I found this aspect of Lucas’ documentary to be the most fascinating and puzzling. Here, Lucas is cast as a gritty underdog perhaps to resemble the stars of Hong Kong’s golden age of cinema. The implications of his heritage seem to say that his background is one of resilience, like the community that he was raised in. By bringing us to Hong Kong, Lucas asks us to view him as the boy who came from a working class family before he fell into trouble. He’s returned now for forgiveness. 

In one scene, Lucas brings us to a place “where my family used to pray”. As the camera follows Lucas up a long hill lined with golden statues of gods and goddesses, he reflects on the poetry engraved on each monument. “My dad explained what it all meant to me one day,” he says, in a statement that perhaps holds multiple meanings. The film goes to great lengths to project sentiments like this about its star, such as his love of family and his spirituality, which SM hopes we understand as a wisdom he’s gained while away. (Some of this, I could argue, is believable or at the very least, genuine. Before his hiatus, Lucas would often write on Bubble about his belief in angels and “angel codes” that come from symmetry in numbers.) 

At dinner with close friends, Lucas is reminded he needs to do better. “He told me,” Lucas later recalled of his friend’s advice, “that it's true, humans are greedy but we must control ourselves.” As he says this, he sighs, “Wow. It made me think he has all grown up.”

Yet watching this scene, I couldn’t help but think of how meticulous every detail was crafted to advance the narrative of Lucas’ redemption. Lucas and his friends do not choose a topline restaurant to dine at, but instead a shabby diner where old posters line the walls and stools are stacked in corners. This is supposed to refute the characterization that he’s a gold digger. 

As Lucas’ friends share the shock they felt when the accusations broke, he listens more than he speaks. Styled in a Supreme baseball cap and a simple t-shirt, Lucas’ big brown eyes shift around, only occasionally meeting the eyes of his friends. He nods often and proclaims he will do better. He is meant to resemble someone of a humble background. His role, I surmise, is to be like us. 

Later, Lucas comments indirectly on how he sees himself maturing. “I listen more than I speak now,” he says simply. 

SM is placing a big bet on Lucas’ comeback succeeding, but there seems to be an appetite for him to return. While plenty of NCT and WayV fans have expressed their discomfort with the performer, just as many have stuck by him. Instagram posts from Lucas receive nearly 4 million likes, and his documentaries have been viewed by almost 2 million people. 

The new music, SM said in a statement, will begin with a digital single titled “Renegade” arriving April 1. While Lucas spends the majority of his documentary speaking in Korean and Mandarin, “Renegade” will be entirely in English. This decision feels calculated by who will be the most forgiving to the idol. While Lucas will need to work harder and longer to restore faith in East Asian fans, Western audiences will likely shrug at the accusations brought against him. For proof, look no further than the absolute domination of Kanye West’s new single “CARNIVAL” or the number-one opening album from Ariana Grande. Both are stars embattled by controversy, all of their own making, and both are thriving possibly because of the drama. 

But for many fans, questions remain unanswered. To date, SM has never clarified which accusations were rumors or what was true. No lawsuits, as far as my research finds, have been filed. And while Lucas owns up to making mistakes in his documentary, crucially, he never names what his misdeeds are. What, if anything, is actually owning up to? 

Yet when I watch Lucas’ documentary, what I am most struck by is the power of the K-Pop machine to redefine their idols almost as if they are actors in a play. No longer a wholesome heartthrob, Lucas is now portrayed as a man who cracked under the pressures of fame. He is broken, but not quite defeated. (After all, he has a single to promote!) This is perhaps the first time a label has used an idol’s scandal as a backbone for it’s marketing campaign. 

While Chinese idols like Lucas rarely discuss the xenophobia, racism or discrimination they face in the K-Pop industry, in his documentary, interestingly, Lucas’ heritage takes center stage. Here, it is offered as both an explanation for his behavior and for a story of courage, both of which feel problematic to me. In conversation with his manager, Lucas talks about how challenging it was to be in Korea with people who didn’t speak the same language with him. This, the story seems to say, is also about isolation. The issue with this kind of machinery is that it leaves little room for absolution. We will likely never learn what was rumor and what was fact in the accusations that were brought against Lucas. 

But I do see an allegory in Lucas’ own work that could explain, in a kaleidoscope way, what happened next. In the closing shot of NCT U’s video for “Make A Wish”, Lucas and the six other members disappear from a stage in a “now you don’t see him” magic trick from a wave of bright red fabric. Watching him in the “Freeze”/ “Unfreeze” documentary, I felt a similar magic trick happening: The creation of a new idol.