ATEEZ's Hongjoong recalls being too strict on his members, even driving some to tears

ATEEZ's leader Hongjoong looked back on the days when he was too strict on his members, nearly driving them to tears. 

Appearing as a guest on the October 2 installment of 'Jung Yonghwa's LP Room 2', Hongjoong revealed that he "grew up listening to CNBLUE" during his middle school days, absolutely flattering the YouTube show's host. 

Later, while talking about the struggles from their debut days, Hongjoong and Yonghwa found another commonality between them - both were too strict on their members.

Hongjoong said, "I used to tell the members, 'Never sit down during a concert'. But there are those moments when you have to sit down because of the stage transitions. One time, one of the members sat down when the lights blacked and then got up a little late. That bothered me, so I said to them after coming down from the stage, 'I thought we agreed not to sit down'."

According to Hongjoong, there was an incident which made him change his way of thinking. He explained, "It was right before we began promotions for our 3rd mini album. I was roommates with Seonghwa at the time, and one day, he came into the room and said to me, 'The members have something to say'. So I went with him, and all of the members were there, and they all had very solemn expressions. When I asked them 'What's wrong?', they said, 'We feel like we're suffocating'."

He continued, "The members honestly told me that I was being too overbearing. I remember one of the members, with tears in his eyes, said, 'Hyung, it's too much. I can't go on like this. You need to let us breathe'. When I saw him crying, I realized that I had been too hard on them. As soon as I realized that, I apologized to them right away and told them I would be better starting tomorrow. And immediately the following day, I started acting differently, purposely doing things or saying things that I told the members not to do."

Watch the full episode of 'Jung Yonghwa's LP Room 2' with guest Hongjoong, below. 

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