IZ*ONE Spotlight: Lee Chaeyon (ranked #12 on "Produce48")

As we a little over a month away for the music debut of global pop group, IZ*ONE (pronounced as “Eyes One”, IZ=12 and 12 members make One), we will spotlight each member.

IZ*ONE is comprised of 12 trainees who competed among 96 trainees from South Korea and Japan (members of AKB48G).

The first spotlight is on WM Entertainment Trainee Lee Chaeyon (also spelled as “Lee Chae Yeon”) who was voted for the final #12 spot to become part of the global group, IZ*ONE.

She competed in “K-Pop Star 3” (2013) and “SIXTEEN” (2015) and fortunately the third time was a charm for the former JYP Trainee and exciting dancer who also showed us she can sing!

She auditioned for “Produce48” and in episode 0, the hosts of the special episode they were impressed by Chaeyon’s dancing.

For the first episode, she wowed the trainers and even surprised many trainees when they saw her making her entrance.

In the beginning of the series, she was seen as the rival of Kwon Eunbi of Woolim Entertainment (as WM and Woolim Entertainment are rivals known for their trainees who can dance). But both became close in the series.

And as Lee Chaeyon would be impressive during her performances…

Her teams would lose and she was not getting the votes which we would see the exciting dancer with confidence, suddenly change and we would see her confidence plummet.

Even the trainers loved her and it was often shocking and also scary when you started to see the voters focusing on visual looks than talent.

To make it worse, it doesn’t help but when trainees started to read comments online, it didn’t help at all and it started to rock a trainee’s confidence.

For viewers, you couldn’t help but root for Lee Chaeyon because you watched this vibrant talent who could dance, sing and also was a solid leader, start to crumble before our eyes and her confidence taking a hit.

But then we started to see a reversal as we approached the finale.

But there was one comfort that viewers saw in “Produce48” and it was possibly one of the best displays of friendship between the South Korean and Japanese trainees and that was to see HKT48 member, Miyawaki Sakura supportive and always by Lee Chaeyon’s side. They were each other’s rock and earned the nickname by international fans as “Chaekura” or “Hotaru Couple”.

Lee Chaeyon eventually bounced back and gave a wonderful performance for the 1000% Concept Evaluation.