Former YG Trainee Maydoni Confesses She Was Forced On A Hiatus After Falling Victim To A Scam

If the name Maydoni sounds familiar, it’s because she is a former OG JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment trainee. Having trained alongside Wonder Girls‘ Sunye and 2AM‘s Jo Kwon, Maydoni was pretty much guaranteed to have a successful K-Pop career. Several years after training under YG Entertainment, however, Maydoni found her name missing from the promised debut lineups — which ultimately led to her departure from the Big 4 agency.

Maydoni | @maydoni/YouTube

After staying relatively quiet during her 12 year hiatus, Maydoni recently greeted all of her fans as a participant on the survival program, New Singer. It was here that the singer shared her story with all of the viewers about her long break from the industry.

She first began by confessing her real feelings about performing once again on a major broadcast station.

Maydoni on “New Singer” | KBS

I was really nervous, really nervous. It’s been 12 years since I’ve performed on a major broadcast station.

— Maydoni

Maydoni had previously competed on JYP Entertainment’s audition program, 99% Challenge, where she was selected by the agency along with Sunye and Jo Kwon to join as JYP Entertainment trainees.

An old clip of Maydoni as a child auditioning on the JYP Entertainment program was revisited during the singer’s New Singer interview.

Maydoni competing on “99% Challenge” as a young child.

In another clip provided by New Singer, viewers could see Maydoni with Jo Kwon and Sunye on 99% Challenge.

Clip from “99% Challenge.”

Following her past audition story, Maydoni told the tale of the unfortunate scam that she fell victim to, which ultimately led to her long hiatus.

After the program [99% Challenge], someone contacted me claiming to be a management team. They said that they would take care of my activities. So I went to Japan, but it ended up being a voice phishing scam.

— Maydoni

While the singer didn’t get into the details of how she was affected by the scam, Maydoni did reveal that the voice phishing scam was the reason behind her long hiatus.

Due to my long hiatus, my desire to stand on stage again became severe. I didn’t want to take a break, but I was forced to and it was during this time…

— Maydoni

It was here that Maydoni confessed that her decision to audition for New Singer after a 12 year break was stemmed from her fear of being forgotten.

That I realized ‘if I continue in this way, I will probably be forgotten.’ I thought this a lot, which is why I made the big decision to challenge myself through this [audition.]

— Maydoni

We can’t imagine the hardships Maydoni had to endure during the past 12 years, but we are so excited to see her back on stage once again. Check out her interview and performance on New Singer down below!