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A post by Hong Kong influencer Ling Cheng on Threads included this photo of what appears to be Seungri DJing at the club Burning Sun. Ling wrote in a post on May 22, 2024, on the platform that the recent BBC documentary on the Burning Sun case made her recall her own personal story at the club where K-pop stars were found to have drugged and assaulted women. (from @lingchengg on Threads) 

Ling Cheng, a social media influencer from Hong Kong, has recently claimed that she lost consciousness after drinking at the infamous Burning Sun club. “I hope my personal experience can be a cautionary tale,” she posted on her Threads account.  

“The BBC revealed the inside story of the Burning Sun incident through a documentary. I kept thinking about my experience, and it sent a chill down my spine the whole time I was watching it,” Ling wrote.  

Ling has 277,000 subscribers on YouTube. Since the BBC released the documentary “Burning Sun: Exposing the Secret K-pop Chat Groups” on its YouTube channel on May 19, there has been renewed interest in the incident, with more people coming out publicly with their own stories of questioning if they’d been drugged at the club. The documentary had been viewed 1.6 million times as of May 31. 

Ling Cheng is a well-known influencer in Hong Kong. (from Ling’s Facebook) 

“In 2018, an acquaintance’s ex-boyfriend was singer Seungri’s Hong Kong business partner, so I visited Burning Sun. Seungri was the DJ that night, and the club was crowded with people,” Ling wrote.  

She described how many people were wearing sunglasses and sucking on pacifiers. She later discovered that the people had taken drugs, and wore sunglasses to hide their eyes and used pacifiers to keep themselves from biting their own tongues. 

Ling described how she started feeling unusually drunk after drinking only two glasses of champagne. She eventually lost consciousness. “I remember wondering if there were drugs in that drink,” she recalled. When she regained consciousness, she discovered that her wallet was missing. Fortunately, her friends helped her leave the club, and they reported the theft to the police.  

“Many of my friends from Hong Kong come to Korea and ask me what nightclubs I would recommend,” Ling wrote. “But honestly, Gangnam nightclubs are still very dangerous. I definitely don't recommend going to a club if you’re with a few girls.”  

Ling released some photos in her post. They show her wearing a Burning Sun admission bracelet, people holding bottles of champagne with sparklers attached, and a man Ling identifies as Seungri in a DJ booth.  

A post by Hong Kong influencer Ling Cheng on Threads included this photo of what appears to be a wristband for the club Burning Sun. Ling wrote in a post on May 22, 2024, on the platform that the recent BBC documentary on the Burning Sun case made her recall her own personal story at the club where K-pop stars were found to have drugged and assaulted women. (from @lingchengg on Threads)

A victim featured in the BBC documentary also recalled, “It was after I’d had one or two drinks, perhaps? I went to the toilet with my friend and said, ‘I feel weird today, I'm getting drunk really quickly. I think I shouldn't drink anymore.' Then we came back to our seats. But then suddenly I woke up on a bed.” The woman recalled that upon waking up, a man ran at her and forced her clothes off, before holding her down and raping her. 

According to the BBC documentary, the woman realized that the man in the room was the same man she met at the club and gave her drinks. She went to the police afterward to report sexual assault, but the suspect offered photos as evidence that the act was consensual. The man was eventually allowed to leave the country.    

The woman, however, claimed that she cried and begged the man to let her go after the sexual assault. According to her story, the man told her he would let her go if she posed for some photos with him to make it look like they were having a good time. He told her to smile, but she couldn’t force it. He wouldn’t let her hide her face, so she just did a quick peace sign pose and left as soon as she could.  

By Joh Yun-yeong, staff reporter 

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