Jun Hyo seong

1989–2004: Early life and childhood

Jun Hyoseong was born in Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea on October 13, 1989. Hyoseong's name is derived from the word 유성 which is Korean for meteor. She was named this way as her father and maternal grandmother saw a shooting star across the sky on the day of her birth. Hyoseong's family struggled financially, and she and her family earned extra money by delivering newspapers every morning since she was in 3rd grade. Ever since she was young, she was known amongst her friends for her singing and dancing skills. However, she never had thoughts of actually becoming a singer until she was in 6th grade. She admitted,

In middle school, she was the leader of her school's dance club and worked part-time jobs to earn the money to travel to Seoul for auditions. Her parents were against her choice at first but later supported her decision when they saw how dedicated she was towards her goal.

2005–2008: Career beginnings, Five Girls and personal struggles

In 2005, Hyoseong began auditioning for several talent shows hosted in Cheongju and Seoul, however, she was met with failure. The same management company that Hyoseong had auditioned for at Cheongju held another audition in May 2005. This time Hyoseong made it through to the final round. Hyoseong danced BoA's Valenti at her final audition because, "although many people danced to BoA, no one had done the Valenti dance". Thanks to her song choice, the management company took notice of Hyoseong and she went on to win the talent show. She was then advised by an agent of Good Entertainment to audition for Mnet's "Battle Shinhwa". However, she initially hesitated because she was not sure if she was ready to appear on television and she was worried about her school attendance.

Hyoseong managed to make it to the final 12, out of which only 3 were girls. She expressed, "I changed a lot during 'Battle Shinhwa.' I could never let myself relax. Why? Because I had to survive. I didn't have time to relax. All my friends told me I was being so intense." She went on to add, "It was so hard both physically and mentally because I had to do it while attending school. I left school early often during those 6 months. But my teacher really helped me a lot. I felt so bad for my teacher and my friends, but I didn't want to give up either school or Battle Shinhwa. But honestly, I did pretty well during that time in school."

She was picked as the final 6 and later went on to sign a recording contract with Good Entertainment. She signed officially in 2006 and started to live in the dorms with Yoobin and Uee as a trainee and started going to school in Seoul. Good Entertainment had initially intended for Hyoseong to debut in a three-member group, along with Yoobin and Uee, but ended up adding G.NA and Jiwon. They were set to debut as a five-member group called "Five Girls". In 2007, before their official debut, the group starred in a reality show on MTV called "Diary of Five Girls". Five Girls were never able to debut due to their company's financial issues.

In 2008, after "Five Girls" disbandment, she started working at a part-time job and managed to earn enough money to attend Inha University, however, her college life was short lived. "Only Uee and I were left in the company. I thought I really had to work hard, so I decided to leave school and focus on lessons." However, she was faced with a larger obstacle, during her 11th grade, her father was diagnosed with lung cancer,though he later recovered after treatment. Her father was still weak when he decided to go back to work to support his family, and unfortunately the cancer came back, this time being much more aggressive. The doctors told Hyoseong's family to "be ready". Her father died of lung cancer in 2008. At this point Hyoseong was no longer a trainee with Good Entertainment and had decided to start attending college again. However, her plans changed when a TS Entertainment agent contacted her.

2009–present: Secret and rising popularity

In 2008, a TS Entertainment agent had seen Hyoseong in "Diary of Five Girls" and contacted her to audition for their company. Hyoseong passed the audition and began living as a TS Entertainment trainee. TS Entertainment announced that they would debut a four-member girl group in October 2009. Hyoseong, along with Han Sunhwa, Song Jieun and Jung Hana, debuted as the group, Secret. Prior to their debut, the group appeared in a documentary called "Secret Story" which chronicled their debut process. They released their debut single "I Want You Back" in October 2009.

In April 2010, Secret released their first mini album entitled Secret Time which spawned the hit single "Magic"; and served as their breakthrough song in South Korea. In August 2010, they released their second mini album entitled "Madonna" and the title track continued their success as it topped the Gaon Single Charts.

In January 2011, the group deviated from their "sexy" and "sassy" image and released Shy Boy, a "cutesy" and retro inspired song. Although they were worried with the 180 degrees transformation, the single exceeded their expectations as the song was a huge success. Shy Boy charted strongly in digital charts and Secret won their first trophy on music shows with the song. They won a total of 5 trophies in various music shows with Shy Boy. In March 2011, Hyoseong was chosen as a regular cast on KBS's Oh! My School. Secret continued their success with the release of their second CD single entitled "Starlight Moonlight". The title track became another hit for Secret as the song reached number one on the Gaon Monthly Singles Charts and won them another trophy in SBS's Inkigayo.

The same year, Secret began a foray of Japanese activities with the Japanese release of Madonna and Shy Boy. The Japanese remake of "Madonna" debuted at number nine in the Oricon singles charts. Secret was the third of three Korean girl groups to debut on the Oricon chart in the top 10, the others being Kara and Girls Generation. In October 2011, they released their first studio album entitled "Moving in Secret" and spawned them another hit with the lead single "Love is Move. Secret released their first mini album in Japan entitled Shy Boy. The mini album also debuted at number nine on the Oricon album charts.

On November 23, 2011 Hyoseong was injured after falling downa flight of stairs while leaving the dorm. The accident, which ruptured the cartilage in her left knee and fractured the top of her right foot, halted her promotional activities with Secret.

In February 2012, she played Soo Yeon in the sitcom Salamander Guru and The Shadows that aired on SBS.

On the October 21, 2012 episode of Inkigayo, the live music show revealed a teaser video hinting that twenty of the most-Wanted K-pop stars would transform into four new project groups in the yearly event. Hyoseong will be part of the girl group Dazzling Red with Sistar's Hyolyn, 4Minute's Hyuna, After School's Nana and KARA's Nicole. Brave Brothers was set to produce the group's new title song. Slated to air on December 29, the group will perform the tunes only one time on stage and the profits from online streaming and downloading of the songs would be donated to people in need. The song "This Person" was released on December 27, 2012.

On August 6, 2013, it was announced that Hyoseong would make her drama debut as Han Na Young in Orion Cinema Network's drama, The Ghost-Seeing Detective Cheo Yong. She starred in the ten-episode drama with Oh Ji-ho and Oh Ji-eun. Hyoseong started filming in the middle of August, to make it in time for the premiere on February 9, 2014. In relation to this, according to Hyoseong, she received hard acting training from the drama director during the various shoots for the drama. The drama series ended on April 6, 2014.

Solo career

In 2014, it was confirmed that Hyoseong would be the second member of Secret, after Song Ji-eun, to make a solo debut. On April 16, 2014, Hyoseong's agency, TS Entertainment, released a statement saying:

TS Entertainment's initial statement was then followed by another through an interview with Star News on April 17, 2014, the day after. The TS Entertainment representative released a statement saying, "Hyoseong will release her solo album on May 12 and begin her official activities."

On May 2, 2014, it was re-announced that Hyoseong would release her debut single album on May 12, 2014. This announcement also confirmed that the titled is called Top Secret. The single album has three songs, namely: 여자를 몰라 (You Don't Know Women), 밤이 싫어요 (I Hate The Night), and "Goodnight Kiss", the latter being the featured track of the said album. The song 여자를 몰라 (You Don't Know Women) will also feature 제이켠 (J'Kyun). In a pre-order release by YesAsia, it was revealed that Hyoseong would be releasing two sets of her albums: a normal and a limited edition. The normal edition includes a 44-page booklet and a randomly selected photo card (1 out of 4 possible designs) while the limited edition includes a 76-page booklet, a folded mini poster, a 32-page still photobook, a randomly selected photo card (1 out of 4 possible designs) and a making-of DVD.

Hyoseong held an event, the Top Secret Showcase, to showcase her debut at the 'Ramada Hotel Club Vanguard on May 12, 2014; this date was also the date that it was released.

She released her first extended play, titled Fantasia on May 7, 2015. "Into You" was used as the lead single, accompanied with a music video.

She released her second extended play, titled Colored on March 28, 2016. "Find Me" was used as the lead single, accompanied with a music video.

Family background

Hyoseong is the middle child out of three sisters. According to Hyoseong, her two sisters were born at home while she was born at a hospital. Since they were young, her family struggled financially and they worked together making newspaper deliveries. Her father was a construction worker.

Dating life

It was confirmed in a December 2010 episode of Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation's "Bouquet", in which Hyoseong and the other members of Secret were present, that Hyoseong had a boyfriend during her times as a trainee. According to her, she had a boyfriend until 2008. She also confessed that they had broke up with each other after having a fight right before Christmas.

In an interview by Newsen on February 27, 2014, Hyoseong remarked that:

However, in an interview with 'Sure' magazine, Hyoseong revealed that she was actually 'a person who has never dated before', which is quite contrary to her previous story before in "Bouquet". When asked if she was a "motae solo" or a person who has never experienced dating ever, Hyoseong responded with a question if she was too obvious or not. For her, dating is quite difficult,and also, according to her, "If someone shows interest in me, I get thrilled but I don't know what to do about it. It's worse when a person I like suddenly tells me that he likes me. I think about it and in the end, I end up by myself... It's been a long time since I felt my heart pitapat."

Secret's car accident

On December 11, 2012, Secret was involved in a car accident. According to a report by Sports Chosun, around 2:00 am in Korean standard time, the van that Secret rode in was filmed speeding down the highway by another vehicle with a camera. It was then seen hitting an ice patch which caused their van to slide and veer off the road hitting the guardrail and flipping over. The van was then caught passing in front of another car, however, the other driver managed to hit the brakes and avoided slamming into the band's van, which would have resulted in the van's crash becoming more serious.

It was initially reported that Hyoseong had received serious injuries and was immediately taken to the hospital. However, a YTN News update revealed that although Hyoseong had injured her knee and had to wear a cast, it was fellow Secret member, Jung Hana, who received the most serious injuries after breaking her ribs. Following the accident, Secret went into hiatus, stopping their Talk That song promotions.

In a follow-up television report by web portal Nate, fellow Secret member Song Jieun explained how their leader, Hyoseong saved her life during the accident. She said:

Hyoseong's act was commended by many netizens.

Impersonators

On May 3, 2013, Hyoseong came forward on her Twitter account to make it clear that she did not have a Facebook account after an unknown person impersonated her on the social networking site. Hyoseong had also warned her fans against various impersonation accounts that had frequently shown up.

However, the problem did not stop for TS Entertainment, who had to release a follow-up statement on their Twitter account, cautioning fans that Hyoseong does not use Facebook. The agency said, "We've discovered Facebook account(s) posing as Hyoseong. Hyoseong does not use Facebook. We hope that no one falls victim to the imposter account(s)."

Additionally, they said that Hyoseong and her updates can still be followed by her fans through her accounts on Twitter and Instagram.

Leaked school records

On November 11, 2013, Hyoseong's school records were leaked online on an Online community site. Her school records, which date back to 2008 when she was a student majoring in theater and film at Inha University, showed her class section, her complete address, her social security number, her e-mail address and her phone number.

TS Entertainment responded to the issue on the next day, November 12, 2013, by announcing that they were aware of the leak regarding Hyoseong's personal information, that they will be talking with the school to find the source of the leak. TS also said that if an issue occurs, they will definitely take legal action. The specific details of that legal action to be identified and revealed after an investigation.

Misuse of the word 'democratization'

During the May 14, 2013 broadcast of SBS Power FM's Choi Hwajung's Power Time, the four members of Secret participated in a game in which they were given two options and each member would say which one they preferred. The game was done in order to test the members' teamwork and see if they would agree on one thing and have the same set of answers. With the several pairs of choices given, the members of Secret were able to agree three times. After the MC declared this, Hyoseong then made a remark, stating:

The term "민주화", translated as democratization, defined as the transition from an authoritarian regime to a more democratic political regime, has been used by the Ilbe online community as a slang term. Ilbe users use the term as their "down-voting button", using "democratization" to mean 'the citizens create chaos', 'to destroy', or 'to make disappear'.

In response to this, netizens began claiming that Hyoseong has used the term "democratization" in a negative manner.

Artistry and influences

Hyoseong has said that she was influenced by pop and R&B groups such as Fin.K.L and S.E.S. She was also influenced by South Korean ballad singers such as Kim Bum-soo, Sung Si-kyung and Kim Yeon-woo. When it came to dancing, Hyoseong said that she was influenced by the American singer Beyoncé particularly. She also stated that Beyoncé is one of her music idols. TS Entertainment uploaded a video of Hyoseong performing a cover of Beyoncé's Naughty Girl and Crazy in Love in Secret's 1st Japan Tour in March 2012. Because of her work with Secret, she portrays a mix of cute and sexy image through their songs such as "Shy Boy" and "Madonna".

Endorsements and other activities

Along with Secret, Hyoseong has been featured as a model for various endorsement deal such as Grand Mer (Online Fishing Game), Nike, Nene Chicken, Good Day Soju and Parkga among others. Along with Han Sunhwa, Kim Himchan and Bang Yong Guk, Hyoseong was chosen as a model for KELLAN sportswear 11/12 Winter Collection in September 2011. In December 2010, Secret and the Korean Non-Life Insurance Association (KNIA) teamed up to film a Commercial Film in a Kangnam studio to share their message of concern against drunk driving. With Secret, they were also appointed as ambassadors in campaigns and events such as The Seoul Competition Movie Content 'Streamed Seoul 2009' Goodwill Ambassador(2009), The 18th National Women's Soccer Tournament ambassador(2010), The Eco-Project environmental campaign 'URBAN FARM'(2010), The 8th International Paralympic Skills Competition(2010) and others. In December 2011, Secret were appointed as PR ambassadors for the ‘Korea Consumers Forum’. Hyoseong is also an active endorser of the lingerie 'Yes' since being chosen as one last January 29, 2013. As of February 2016, Hyoseong has been endorsing men's makeup for the brand 'Swagger'.