L’Occitane Korea Issues Major Apology After Topless Photo Incident

Oops! Looks like the Korean branch of the company L’Occitane has been forced to issue an apology after the Korean Police launched an investigation into one of their employees.

Mingyu, a Korean rapper and member of the Korean Boy Band Seventeen, was photographed topless by one of the staffers during a photoshoot, but this wasn’t part of the plan of the actual shoot!

These photos were subsequently leaked to the employees personal Instagram account which violates Korea’s Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.

It’s against the law (at least in Korea!)

This law is Korea’s measure to protect people against personal details and photos being collected and shared without their consent. Mingyu was named L’Occitane’s Asia Ambassador in May of 2024, with the idol pushing the brand’s almond shower gel. On Sept. 3rd, 2024, L’Occitane issued a statement on X saying that the employee had been ‘removed from all duties’ and that ‘disciplinary action’ had been taken.

The big apology.

“We sincerely apologize for the recent incident involving the unauthorized release of photos from the L’Occitane Asia Ambassador campaign, which were improperly distributed in the personal social media account of one of our employees.” said L’Occitane in an X-post.

They went on to further add, “We acknowledge that there is no excuse for this breach and fully accept responsibility for what has occurred. We take this matter with the utmost seriousness and we deeply regret the distress caused to the artist and all the fan. We extend our deepest apologies to them.” considering there could be legal trouble in Korea if this had escalated further, the apology benefitted them greatly.

Everybody’s Getting Retrained!

They have gone on to say that going forward they will issue ‘comprehensive and regular training’ for all employees to prevent anything like this from happening again. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, they say. “This program will emphasize the critical importance of respecting copyrights, portrait rights, publicity rights, and privacy of our brand Ambassador.” they continued in their post on X.

So who is Seventeen, exactly?

Seventeen is a Korean Boyband that was formed by Pledis Entertainment back in May of 2015, so it looks like they have been around awhile! Their debut was EP 17 Carat.

The members are S Coups, Joshua, Jun, Jeonghan, Wonwoo, Hoshi, DK, Mingyu, Woozi, Seungkwan, The8, Vernon and Dino. If they do any partnerships with L’Occitane in the future, let’s hope for everyone’s sake that all rules are followed. Be sure and check back here regularly for all the news concerning your favorite brands and entertainers! Stay tuned!!!