Choi Jong Hoon (1990)

Age: 34

Birthday: March, 07, 1990

Nationality: Seoul, South Korea

Height: 178 CM

Biography: Choi Jong Hoon is a South Korean guitarist, musician, actor and former member of FT ISLAND (FT아일랜드). He graduated from Shindong Shin Information Industrial High School and later obtained a bachelor's degree in Electronic and Digital Music from Kyonggi University. He made his debut in June 2007 as FT ISLAND's leader, guitarist, keyboardist and bassist with their first studio album, "Cheerful Sensibility". The lead single, "Love Sick", topped the charts for 8 weeks, and later that year, the band won the Best New Male Group at the Mnet Asian Music Awards and the Popularity and Rookie of the Year awards at the Golden Disk Awards. The band made their Japanese debut on June 8, 2008, with the EP, "Prologue of F.T. Island: Soyogi", and they enjoyed success both in South Korea and around the world. However, he was involved in a major scandal when, in April 2019, police booked him for illegally filming women without their consent (part of the Burning Sun Scandal), distributing a total of six videos and bribery to cover up his drunk-driving incident. A few days later, he admitted to spreading hidden camera photos taken without consent and also filming illegally hidden camera footage. He was charged with one count of sharing personally taken illegal footage and five counts of sharing footage from other sources. The band's agency, FNC Entertainment (FNC엔터테인먼트), immediately removed him from FT ISLAND and named Lee Hong Ki as the new leader. In the same month, a woman came forward to SBS funE, claiming that five men, including Choi, had raped her after she was intoxicated in March 2016 and then shared the footage in a group chat. He denied the allegation but admitted that he and the woman were together on that day. In May 2019, he was arrested on the gang rape allegations and was indicted on the charge of taking part in a gang rape in 2016. In November 2019, he was sentenced to five years in prison, but in May 2020, the Seoul High Court reduced his sentence from five years to two and half years after reaching an agreement with one of the victims. In November 2021, he was released from prison. He left the entertainment industry and remains banned from appearing on any network.

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