SEOUL, Oct. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Shin Hye-sung, a member of the long-running idol group Shinhwa, has been arrested for refusing to take a breathalyzer test, police said Tuesday.
The 43-year-old singer was found at around 1:40 a.m. Tuesday while sleeping in a stolen vehicle parked on a street in Seoul’s Songpa Ward, according to the Songpa Police Station.
Shin then refused to comply with a sobriety test, officers said.
Shin’s agency, meanwhile, acknowledged that Shin was drunk at the time and that he was given a key to the wrong car at a restaurant by a valet parking attendant.
“There is no excuse for drunk driving and Shin driving without even knowing it wasn’t his car under the influence of alcohol,” Liveworks Co. said in a press release.
The sextet debuted in 1998 as one of the first boy bands formed by SM Entertainment and emerged as one of the top-rung K-pop acts in the early 2000s with a series of hit songs, including “Hey, Come On!” and “Wild Eyes.”
Shin was previously arrested in 2007 for a drunk driving offense.
(Yonhap)