How Song Ji-a’s career crumbled in days: the Single’s Inferno star was cut off by friends, edited out of variety shows and she deleted all her Instagram posts following fake luxury fashion furore

Jan 27 , 2022

One moment, Song Ji-a was a rising star, but buying the wrong sort of ‘luxury’ goods has landed her in a whole lot of trouble. Photo: @dear.zia/Instagram

The Korean influencer’s popularity soared to over 4 million Instagram fans after appearing in Netflix’s hit dating show … and then she was exposed for buying fake luxury brands

Song Ji-a’s co-star Kim Hyun-joong and her bestie Kang Ye-won have distanced themselves, plus her scenes on MBC’s variety show The Manager are being edited out

Even if you haven’t watched Single’s Inferno, Netflix’s hit dating reality show, you’ve most likely heard of its breakout star, Song Ji-a. The influencer, who already had a relatively large audience, saw her popularity spike immediately after her appearance, with her followers surging from around 400,000 to over 3.7 million in a few weeks after the show’s completion.

Song Ji-a in Single’s Inferno, wearing a top later revealed to be fake. Photo: Netflix

But her beauty and bold personality aren’t the only things that have captured people’s attention. Recently, she’s been making headlines for the wrong reasons. It started with claims that she was buying knock-off luxury items to curate her wealthy image. Although she has since confirmed those rumours and uploaded a lengthy apology, she still continues to make unsavoury headlines.

So what exactly has happened since that fashion controversy?

She’s deleted all her social media posts

She initially deleted all her posts that contained apparently counterfeit items. Photo: @dear.zia/Instagram

Since uploading a lengthy handwritten apology to Instagram, Song has deleted all her Instagram posts – the apology is the only one remaining, with the comments turned off. Similarly, she’s also set all her YouTube videos to private, and recently uploaded a four-minute apology.

YouTube video player

The video already has over three million views at the time of writing, though, like her Instagram post, comments have been turned off. She announced she’ll be stepping away from social media to take time to “continuously reflect on my actions”.

There was an attempt at an explanation

Her agency released a statement to explain her purchases. Photo: @dear.zia/Instagram

When the controversy first broke out, Song’s management agency, Hyowon CNC, released an apology and later explained why she bought the counterfeit goods featured on her Free Zia YouTube channel. The statement said: “It’s all our fault. It’s the company’s responsibility to check the creator’s styling but we thought that respecting Free Zia’s own styling was a way to communicate with the subscribers on a more intimate level.”

Her agency claimed that the influencer wasn’t aware the luxury items were fake. Photo: @deuxreasons/Twitter

Later, CEO Kim Hyo-jin stated in an interview that when Song was asked where the items were bought, she explained that she bought them at street stalls because she thought they were pretty. According to Kim, Song wasn’t aware the items were fake, and that she never intended to “look rich”.