STARMAKER ENTERTAINMENT was founded in 2009 under the name STAR LABEL by hong sungwoo, husband of han goeun, former musician, originally as a label for models and actors. in 2013 when his wife goeun took over the company, they had a makeover and changed their name to STARMAKER ENTERTAINMENT a few months after they debuted their first artist. goeun kept the name STAR LABEL for a sublabel of SMK that they’d keep their models and actors.
goeun has always wanted SMK to be a safe space for all her artists. her priorities have always been comfort and freedom, both personally and creatively. artists are allowed to take hiatuses as often as they need, mental health is a big priority, and she has no rules against dating or anything of the sort. goeun and the company itself have received backlash for supposedly being too “lenient” with their artists, but goeun often responds, “maybe other companies are being too strict. i want my artists to want to stay, they’re not my slaves.”
people often say SMK has bad luck with their artists, as most have gotten into scandals not long after debut. SMK debuted their first solo artist, CHAE, in 2013. not even half a year after she started making music, she was outed as a lesbian by a still unknown source. this scared chae into going on a nearly year and a half long hiatus, but she stayed under the company. goeun taking over not long before she was outed is the reason chae says she stayed. when they debuted their first girl group CREPUSCULE in 2016, member yoorim was caught up in so many scandals she had to take a small break for her mental health. group SOLAR that debuted in 2019 received a lot of heat from netizens for being a large coed group. when LAI debuted in 2019, he was accused of dating CREPUSCULE member ari not even a week after his debut, these rumours were later confirmed.
the amount of staff under SMK is never really talked about, but people assume that they have at least 50 people on their team. staff members, especially managers, make occasional appearances with the artists. some notable employees on the managing team are hyun narae, CHAE’s manager, noh shieun, CREPUSCULE’s manager, ku sooyeon and ryong suhyun, SOLAR’s managers, and cho songmin, LAI’s manager.
not much is known about the producers under SMK besides some idol producers including CHAE, LAI, and CREPUSCULE’s yoorim and gab, who have all produced outside of their own music. their most notable stylists are two models under their sublabel, gam sooyun and ryu mishil. SMK also lets their artists have some creative control with music production, styling, music video direction, etc, so each artist’s music has their personal touch.
