Woollim Entertainment unveils their forthcoming boy group's secret member— and to everyone's shock, he's originally from Germany!
DRIPPIN's lineup ended this week after 15-year-old Alex got introduced to the public via his "DRIPPIN allegory" preview. He demonstrates his impressive and beautiful visuals in the clip, but his band role has not been revealed.
Alexander Vincent Schmidt, a half-Korean half-German teenager, will be the group's maknae and the only foreign participant. In reality, he's also the first male star to debut in Woollim Entertainment, who is half-foreign.
Although six of the seven members of DRIPPIN made appearances on Produce X 101 (which include Junho, who made his first appearance in X1), Alex stayed a "hidden" trainee until his revelation on September 11. (via Koreaboo)
Alex was raised to a German father (Haiko) and Korean mother (Sophia), in Mainz, Germany, according to an article with Alex's family released many years earlier. His mom migrated to Germany before he was born.
However, when Alex was four years old, the family relocated back to Korea. Alex (whose Korean name officially is Lee Hayoung) is natively proficient in German and Korean, due to his heritage. Apart from that, the young language expert also speaks English and French.
Woollim Entertainment hasn't shared anything about Alex yet, though early DRIPPIN supporters did their searching and figured out he's already got a bit of success under his collar. He participated in SBS' Global Junior Show while he was ten years old (global age).
He also featured further on SBS' Ggurugi Life Inquiry. Aside from that, he has been a multi-year child model, appearing in several modeling advertisements. Although idols of European nationalities are rare in K-Pop, Alex is also not Germany's first hail.
WayV's YangYang is deemed to be German-Taiwanese and moved to Germany after his birth. The LUMINOUS of WIP Company already has a German representative — Jayden. But Alex is the first half-German star by DNA. Huening Kai of TXT is believed to have a German relative on his dad's family, but his father believes himself to be American.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the newly announced rookie boy band from Woollim Entertainment has recently revealed its team's official identity, in anticipation of its October debut.
The company confirmed in a public announcement on September 4, "Woollim's new face, boy group DRIPPIN is expected to launch this October. DRIPPIN will represent the third boy group of Woollim Entertainment after INFINITE and Golden Child, including previous X1 star Cha Jun Ho." (via Allkpop)
Also, DRIPPIN will be composed of a total of 7 representatives as per the managing label. The 6-member Woollim Newcomers are accustomed to by several fans, namely past 'Produce X 101' competitors Cha Jun Ho, Hwang Yun Sung, Kim Min Seo, Kim Dong Yoon, Joo Chang Wook, and Lee Hyup.
Furthermore, DRIPPIN recently launched off a sequence of pre-debut introduction trailers named 'DRIPPIN allegory' starting on September 7.