TWICE's Chaeyoung Leaves JYP, Stays in the Group: How It Works

On August 13, 2026, TWICE member Chaeyoung announced on Instagram that she is ending her exclusive contract with JYP Entertainment after 14 years to pursue a solo career. She was careful to specify what this does not mean: she is not leaving TWICE. "I want to say that my activities with TWICE will continue unchanged," she wrote, adding that her time as a member of TWICE is the reason she has "been loved so much" in the first place.

To an international reader following K-pop mainly through headlines, this can sound contradictory. How does a member "leave" her label but not her group? The short answer is that in Korean pop music, an idol's contract with their agency and a group's contract to perform as a group are often two separate legal documents — and Chaeyoung's case, along with several of her groupmates', is becoming one of the clearest examples yet of how that separation works in practice.

What Happened

Chaeyoung's departure follows bandmate Jeongyeon by just three days. On August 10, Jeongyeon announced in a handwritten letter posted to Instagram that she was ending her own 11-year contract with JYP and signing with VARO Entertainment, an agency that also represents her older sister, actress Gong Seung-yeon, and actor Byun Woo-seok. Jeongyeon wrote that although she was "beginning a new chapter at a new agency," TWICE "will remain at the heart of who I am," and that being there for the group's fandom, Once, "will always come first."

Chaeyoung's announcement three days later followed a similar script. She will not sign with an existing agency but instead build her own project, which she is calling "LIL FANTASY." It is not a new name: Chaeyoung released her debut solo album, LIL FANTASY vol. 1, through JYP in September 2025. That record was ranked 86th on Rolling Stone's 2025 list of the year's best albums, named Forbes' top K-pop album of 2025, and placed seventh on Billboard's year-end K-pop albums chart — a level of individual critical recognition that helps explain why she has the standing to move solo activities outside JYP.

Neither Chaeyoung nor Jeongyeon has said anything about TWICE breaking up, disbanding, or reducing its release schedule. Both describe their moves strictly as changes to their personal, individual contracts.

Why It Matters

For readers who have followed K-pop labor disputes mainly through the NewJeans–ADOR case, this story needs a different mental model entirely.

In Korea's idol system, a trainee who debuts in a group typically signs one exclusive contract (전속계약) with their agency. That single contract has historically covered everything: group promotions, solo work, acting, endorsements, and appearance fees, usually for seven years or more before renewal. This is the contract type at the center of the NewJeans case — all five members tried to terminate one shared contract with ADOR and rebrand as an independent unit called NJZ. Seoul courts ruled against them twice, most decisively in October 2025, when a court found the contract valid through 2029 and upheld penalty clauses of 1 billion won (about $700,000) per unauthorized activity. That was a group versus agency legal war, fought over a single contract that bound every member the same way.

TWICE's situation is structured differently, and increasingly this is the norm rather than the exception for K-pop's longer-running groups. What is emerging — and what Chaeyoung and Jeongyeon are both doing — is a split-contract model: a member's personal exclusive contract (covering solo music, acting, variety shows, and endorsements) is separated from the group's own promotional contract, which stays with the original label. The individual can walk away from the first without touching the second.

The clearest precedent is Blackpink. In December 2023, all four members renewed only their group-activity contract with YG Entertainment, while letting their individual contracts lapse. Jennie, Jisoo, and Lisa each launched personal labels (OA, Blissoo, and LLOUD, respectively), while Rosé signed her solo career to The Black Label. YG kept the rights to Blackpink's world tours, group albums, and merchandise — historically its most lucrative revenue stream — while each member built her own team for individual work. Blackpink has continued to tour and release music as a group since.

A newer example landed the same month as Chaeyoung's news: on losing a contract dispute with One Hundred Label in early August 2026, boy group The Boyz announced they would continue performing together under a newly formed label for group activities, while each of the nine members pursues individual management deals with agencies of their own choosing.

Why would an agency agree to let a member go at all? Because for an established group, the group itself is usually worth more than any single member's solo career. Industry coverage of TWICE's current contract talks has repeatedly described the group as one of JYP's core intellectual-property assets: TWICE's 2025–2026 world tour, "THIS IS FOR," ran 81 shows across 44 cities in Asia, North America, and Europe. World tours, album cycles, and merchandising generate far more revenue than any one member's acting or solo-music deal. Letting members pursue outside opportunities through specialized agencies — one strong in acting management, another in global brand deals — while keeping the group contract in-house lets an agency retain its most valuable asset instead of risking a full walkout, while members gain a level of career freedom that was rare in K-pop a decade ago.

How We Got Here

TWICE debuted under JYP Entertainment in 2015 with nine members: Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu. In 2022, all nine renewed their contracts with JYP together, clearing what the Korean entertainment press calls the "seven-year curse" — a reference to the standard length of a first idol contract, after which many groups quietly disband as members decline to re-sign.

By June 2026, TWICE entered its second round of contract renewal talks. JYP's public statements during this period were consistently cautious: the agency said only that it was in "a period of discussion" and would announce outcomes once finalized. Reports through July named several members, including Tzuyu and team leader Jihyo, as reportedly exploring departures from JYP or considering setting up independent, one-person management arrangements of their own — though as of this writing, neither Tzuyu nor Jihyo has made a personal announcement confirming a deal, unlike Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung. What every report has agreed on, including JYP's own statements, is that none of this points toward TWICE disbanding.

What to Watch Next

Several questions remain open. Whether Tzuyu and Jihyo ultimately sign with outside agencies, launch their own labels, or renew directly with JYP has not been confirmed. JYP has not issued a comprehensive statement covering the whole group's new contract terms, including how revenue from future albums and tours will be shared among JYP and any outside agencies now representing individual members.

There is also a practical scheduling question: split-contract arrangements like Blackpink's have historically lengthened the gaps between full-group comebacks, since tours and releases now require coordinating calendars across multiple companies rather than one. How that affects TWICE's release pace, and whether all nine members appear together for the group's next comeback, is the detail worth watching once JYP makes its next official statement.