NMIXX has deleted a scene from its self-produced YouTube content after fans condemned an acting prompt that evoked member Lily’s childhood bushfire trauma, according to a report from Sports Kyunghyang on October 31.
The controversy centers on a video uploaded to NMIXX’s YouTube channel on October 30, titled in Korean as a message of encouragement to all NSWER, the group’s fans. In the video, the members took part in an impromptu acting test, delivering short performances meant to cheer fans on through Shorts-style clips.
The first prompt given to the members was to act out a scene in which their house burns down and disappears. Lily responded calmly that she did not need to act that one out, a remark that immediately sobered the mood on set. Fellow members were visibly taken aback, with some questioning the production team directly, asking why such a prompt had been brought in at all.
The reaction struck a nerve because of Lily’s personal history. When she was eight years old, she was living in Marysville, in the Australian state of Victoria, when the area was hit by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, described by Sports Kyunghyang as among the worst fires in Victoria’s history. Some residents of the town lost their lives in the disaster.
Lily has spoken publicly about that experience before. During her appearance on the SBS audition program “K-pop Star 4,” she said that many things were destroyed and many people died, that she developed trauma, stopped going outside, and became afraid of the wind. She also said that music helped her heal from that pain, and the disaster became part of the story of how she came to sing.
After the video was published, viewers flooded the comments with criticism of the production team’s planning, questioning how such a scenario could be given to Lily and calling for an apology to her. As the backlash spread, the scene in question was removed from the YouTube video.
No official statement from the production team or the group’s agency was reported in the coverage. Fans are now calling for more careful review of self-produced idol content, arguing that a performer’s personal history should be weighed before sensitive subjects become on-camera games.
Whether the team behind NMIXX’s in-house content addresses fans directly remains to be seen, but the swift removal of the scene shows the criticism was heard.
