IVE’s An Yujin looked back on her surprising trainee story and revealed that she joined her agency after passing an email audition while she was still in middle school.
An Yujin appeared as a guest on the online show Listen! Yuri’s Forest, where she spoke with Choi Yuri about how her entertainment career began.
Choi Yuri brought up An Yujin’s well-known audition story and asked how she managed to pass an agency audition on her first attempt.
An Yujin replied, “Even when I think about it again, I can’t believe it. When I look back at the photos and videos from that time, I sometimes think, ‘Why did they choose me?’”
She explained that she was not attending a singing or dance academy at the time, so she did not have many opportunities to learn about auditions.
An Yujin said, “I somehow ended up doing an email audition, and people seem surprised when they hear about it.”
For her audition, she sang I Hope It Would Be That Way Now while she was in her first year of middle school. She also included videos of herself dancing at school.
She recalled, “I asked my friends to film me dancing at school and sent those videos.”
An Yujin then jokingly thanked her longtime friends for keeping those old clips private.
She said with a smile, “I’m really grateful to my friends because they’ve protected all those videos of me dancing and putting myself out there.”
She then playfully sent them a message, saying, “Friends, thank you so, so much. Will you keep protecting them forever?”
During the conversation, An Yujin was also asked whether she had been the type of student who became class president or joined student leadership.
She answered, “I really liked being class president. I also wanted to become student council president, but I started training in middle school, so after that I didn’t really get the chance.”
An Yujin has since become one of IVE’s most recognized members and continues to show a different side of herself through variety programs, including tvN’s Space Rice Cake Shop.
