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Yeji from Itzy: she would have been a footballer if she hadn’t made it in entertainment as a K-pop girl group leader

  • The leader and oldest member of Itzy, Yeji is the K-pop girl group’s lead dancer and vocalist
  • Yeji says one of her childhood dreams was to become a footballer and that she ‘hated dancing’ when she was younger

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Yeji went from having football dreams to becoming the lead vocalist of a K-pop girl group.

For a K-pop girl group that only made its debut less than a year ago, Itzy has enjoyed a surprisingly swift rise to fame and success.

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Itzy is the second girl group to have been formed by idol agency JYP Entertainment, whose first female outfit, Twice, has been hugely successful in South Korea and Japan.

The group’s debut single, Dalla Dalla , reached No 2 on Billboard’s world digital song sales chart last year. Within 24 hours of its release, the single’s music video was viewed more than 17.1 million times, earning Itzy a place among the 10 biggest K-pop music video debuts on YouTube.

By the end of 2019, Itzy were touring major cities in Asia, from Macau to Bangkok to Singapore. And in the first weeks of 2020, Itzy took their tour out of Asia and to the United States, starting with Los Angeles and ending with New York.

The most popular member of Itzy is the group’s leader and oldest member, Yeji. After taking part in several television idol competition shows, she was selected as a member of Itzy for her vocal and dancing skills.

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