TWICE member Jeongyeon announced today that she is leaving JYP Entertainment, ending an eleven-year relationship with the agency that debuted her in 2015.
In a handwritten letter posted to Instagram on August 10, Jeongyeon confirmed her departure and announced that she had signed an exclusive contract with VARO Entertainment (also stylized in English as Baro) on the same day. VARO also represents her older sister Gong Seung-yeon, as well as actors Byeon Woo Seok and Lee Chae Min.
She is the first TWICE member to leave JYP since the group’s debut. It is important to note that while she is leaving the agency, she remains with the nine-member group.
“The one thing I truly want to tell ONCE is that even though I am moving on to a new chapter to take on new challenges, TWICE, the center of my life, will remain unchanged, just as it is now,” she wrote in the letter. VARO Entertainment stated they were “sincerely happy to create a valuable connection with Yu Jeongyeon, who has diverse charms and limitless potential.”
TWICE’s Intact Lineup Was Always The Exception
Jeongyeon, 29, is one of TWICE’s lead vocalists and debuted with the group in 2015 through JYP’s survival programme Sixteen. The group went on to release major hits including “OOH-AHH,” “Cheer Up,” and “TT.”
Comprising members Jihyo, Nayeon, Momo, Mina, Sana, Dahyun, Jeongyeon, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu, TWICE is one of the industry’s longest enduring girl groups, and have broken countless records in the more than a decade they have been active.
Until today, TWICE had maintained the same nine-member lineup from debut across an eleven year career — no additions and no departures.
As pointed out during SEVENTEEN’s one-of-a-kind contract renewal, in the last three decades, out of the hundreds of groups hoping to make it big every year, the number that have renewed contracts even once with one single company and their original lineups intact, is less than fifteen.
The ‘seven-year jinx’ — the K-pop industry’s shorthand for the contract expiration point at which groups typically fracture — did not claim TWICE on schedule, but in a way, has just claimed its first member now.
In her letter, Jeongyeon wrote, “JYP has been my second home since my teenage years — a place where I’ve spent so much time and created so many cherished memories. I am now preparing to start a new chapter in a new place.”
TWICE In A Year Of K-Pop Departures
Jeongyeon’s announcement comes two-thirds of the way into a year that has been exceptionally turbulent for lineup stability. ENHYPEN’s Heeseung departed in March 2026 to pursue a solo career under Belift Lab, a move that crash-landed so unexpectedly that K-pop fans flooded South Korea’s national pension service lines and sent trucks in protest.
Mark Lee ended his decade-long contract with SM Entertainment and left all NCT units in April 2026. ZEROBASEONE split in half, with four members departing to re-debut under YH Entertainment. WinWin departed NCT and WayV in July as his contract expired. KATSEYE’s Manon (this one is K-pop adjacent) has been on hiatus since February with no return date confirmed. Leader Sophia Laforteza is also currently out of commission.
What This Means For TWICE
Against this backdrop, SEVENTEEN’s full thirteen-member renewal was the year’s most conspicuous counterexample. TWICE was another, until today.
Jeongyeon is also not the only TWICE member whose JYP future has been discussed. Although no official statements have been made, frenetic speculations about TWICE leader Jihyo and members Tzuyu and Chaeyoung earlier this year prompted JYP to issue statements that contract negotiations were still ongoing.
The “separate but together” arrangement, where individual members handle solo promotions through a separate agency while remaining with their groups, has become somewhat of a standard practice among K-pop’s longer-running acts, albeit with an uneven track record.
BLACKPINK immediately comes to mind, where the four members Jisoo, Lisa, Jennie and Rosé collectively declined to renew their individual solo contracts with YG Entertainment in 2023.
Each signed with separate agencies or founded their own, while keeping a group contract with YG specifically for BLACKPINK activities. That arrangement coincided with an extended period with no group output as members prioritised solo careers, and subsquent fan frustration and widespread questions about the future of the group.
BLACKPINK has since returned, but the intervening period exposed the model’s structural risk — when no single agency has full scheduling authority over all members, group projects become logistically complex and are often deprioritised. Considering TWICE has more than double the number of members as BLACKPINK, this would be something to keep in mind.
Girls’ Generation, currently eight members, can be taken as a closer parallel of the same story. In 2017, Tiffany, Sooyoung and Seohyun declined to renew with SM Entertainment while the other five members stayed, with SM issuing a statement that group activities would continue regardless. Girls’ Generation did release their seventh album in 2022 to mark their 15th anniversary and are coming back again in 2027 for their 20th, but only after a multi-year period of minimal activity and extended speculation about whether they would ever function as a full group again.
In July this year, Yuri became the latest member to depart SM while confirming her continued commitment to group activities, bringing the number of members with external solo representation to three (Sunny left in 2023).
Among boy groups, TWICE’s JYP labelmates 2PM is the case most often referred to as proof that the arrangement can work sustainably.
Member Ok Taecyeon left JYP in 2018 for agency 51K, becoming the group’s first departure from the label. His new agency issued a statement confirming that 2PM group activities would continue through JYP. When Chansung departed in 2022 and Lee Jun-ho followed in 2025 after 17 years, 2PM’s group activities continued across those transitions with no announced disbandment.
The group has at various points had members spread across multiple agencies while still promoting collectively.
Veteran group Super Junior, whose members Donghae, Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun moved to external agencies in 2023 while the group renewed collectively with SM, operates similarly.
Where the model has broken down is when departures happened without an anchor — when members left the group itself rather than just the label, or when a member’s exit was involuntary or acrimonious rather than mutually agreed. Jessica’s departure from Girls’ Generation in 2014, for example was of the latter kind. The lesson most agencies appear to have absorbed in the decade since is that the separation of group and solo contracts, handled early and transparently enough, is preferable to a full departure for the label, the remaining members and for the group’s commercial longevity.
Prospects for whether this holds for TWICE depends substantially on what the remaining eight members decide to do with their own contracts. Either way, Jeongyeon’s move is the first, but definitely not the last word on TWICE’s next chapter.
TWICE Jeongyeon’s Full Statement
“Hello, this is Jeongyeon. After giving a lot of thought to how to express my feelings, I am sharing this letter with you all. JYP has been my second home since my teenage years; a place where I’ve spent so much time and created so many cherished memories. I am now preparing to start a new chapter in a new place. Leaving a place that feels so familiar to me was daunting at first, but I was able to find the courage thanks to my members and our ONCE who have always believed in me. I am deeply grateful to my members and ONCE; words cannot fully express my gratitude. I am also very grateful to the JYP family who helped me grow into the person I am today. The one thing I truly want to tell ONCE is that even though I am moving on to a new chapter to take on new challenges, TWICE, the center of my life, will remain unchanged, just as it is now. Standing before ONCE as a member of TWICE will always be my very first priority. I will prepare step by step with all my heart—both for my journey as TWICE’s Jeongyeon, whom you have loved so much, and for the new challenges ahead as Yoo Jeongyeon. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in me and always staying by my side. Since we still have so much time ahead of us to create new memories, I will work hard to fill those moments even more beautifully with ONCE. Thank you always.”