All four members of the girl group Brave Girls will leave Brave Entertainment as their exclusive contracts expired, said the agency on Thursday.

“The exclusive contracts of the four artists — Minyoung, Yujeong, Eunji and Yuna — with the agency expire today [Feb. 16]. Therefore, Brave Girls will end its official activities with the digital single ‘Goodbye’ which drops today,” the statement reads.

The agency explained the departure was decided after discussions with the members over a lengthy period of time.

“We would also like to thank and applaud Minyoung, Yujeong, Eunji and Yuna for passionately working for the last seven years [...] we will always support the members,” said the agency.

The statement concluded with a summary of Brave Girls' career, describing the "chart-climbing” the girl group achieved back in 2021 with its sleeper hit "Rollin.'"

In K-pop, "chart-climbing" refers to when a song gains popularity and ranks high on streaming charts months or even years after its release. "Rollin'" was released in 2017 and topped the charts in early 2021.

Brave Girls originally debuted in 2011, but all the original members left the group after seeing lukewarm success. The group's producer, Brave Brothers, called the four members — Minyoung, Yujeong, Eunji and Yuna — the second generation of Brave Girls.

The second generation did not see commercial success either and was about to disband, looking into other jobs until a YouTube video about "Rollin'" went viral in early 2021. The video, which showed a compilation of YouTube comments under Brave Girls' performances, revealed that the song was popular among Korean servicemen as the girl group frequently performed at military bases to entertain troops. The viral popularity earned Brave Girls the moniker "president of the military."


BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]