Sunbeam

Sunbeam
Sunbeam is a 9 member girl group under Belladonna Entertainment formed by the entertainment company's first survival project titled "Fourteen". Originally the group was 7 members coming out of the finale of fourteen however two more members who did not originally participate in fourteen joined the group before they debuted. The group debuted March 6th, 2019 with a cute catchy song called "What is Love?". At first the girls did not recieve that much attention from the public despite the high ratings of the survival show. It wasn't until the release of their 1st Mini Album "Feel Special" was released in which they started to gain mass popularity. During their promotion for Feel Special, Sunbeam got their first All-Kill in which they won on all three prominent award shows in one week, and at the time were one of two groups that had done that at the time. The group is now inbetween comebacks and it is rumored they might be doing a special comeback in late february or march for their 1 year anniversary since debut, although there is also a rumor about a member possibly leaving the group, both rumors are unconfirmed by the company.

Fourteen
Belladonna Entertainment, previously know as Starlight Entertainment and Pandora Media Network launched their first survival project to create a permanent group of, at the time, 7 girls. They held auditions and ultimately got the 14 girls in which they needed for the program. The MC's of the program were Model & Actress Inha Jung and Singer & Model Kira Pyeong. The trainees that participated in fourteen were as follows: Kim Bohee, Cha Inyoung, Hyeong Siyoon, Ha Bo-ryeong, Sone Keiko, Oh Sebin, Ryu Minhee, Ahn Dayoung, Lee Lana, Jung Sori, Kim Hyojung, Park Yora, Yoshida Naoko, and Seok Dahye. Bo-ryeong, aka Ryeong, was the first to be eliminated in Episode 3 after the 1v1 vocal or dance battles. After episode 5, four more episodes of the show were planned and recorded, however a technical difficulty made the footage unsuable and therefore could not be aired. During these episodes members Yora and Minnie were eliminated according to the company who let the public know a few details of what would have happened in the episodes, there were a few special guests in the past few episodes including Seoyoung and Jiwoo of Novagirls & Nami of Daydream and SOS who gave the girls advice about being in groups. Despite the difficulties, they continued on and filmed and released the final episode, very delayed from the original planned end date of the show due to  the technical problems. In the final episode the eliminated members joined the girls on stage to participate in show for one last time, with their friends. The first 5 official members of sunbeam were announced in this order, according to ranking with votes, and overall talent from secret judges: Lilly, Kiko, Hyojung, Sori, and Inyoung. The last two official members of the group, voted by the audience, were announced to be Naoko and Bohee. The MC's then had the girls announce themselves with the groupname which was revealed to be Sunbeam, for the first time. The show was then wrapped up with some short clips of the episodes that did air, to show the girls during their time of hard work and struggle and to show how far they had come.

The members that did not debut in the final group were either sent back to their original companies or went on to do other things. Sebin & Yora participated in the company's second survival project Finding Infinity in which both girls debuted in the group, Infinity Girls.

Shortly after Fourteen ended, the official members of Sunbeam held their first official fansign in which Neverland Entertainment trainee - at the time - Junseo Choi showed up in support of his new friends. The girls then continued to work hard towards their debut.

New Members & Debut
During their predebut time, sunbeam spent a lot of time in preparation for their debut. Eventually they and the company came to the conclusion that the group was missing something. They then held a secretive small competition, or as they phrased it "Bootcamp" to quickly find two new members for the group, as that is what they felt was missing. After an extensive process in which a group of trainees went through a stressful bootcamp to impress the sunbeam members, the girls hand picked two girls: Han Soojun and Nakamura Yukio. Currently, less is known about these two as they did not appear in the public eye as the other members of sunbeam did, however since they made their debut right alongside the group they had no trouble fitting in. It is also unknown when exactly the process of the bootcamp took place & when the two were officially added to the group because there is no record of that since Sunbeam was still in predebut.

With two new members, the girls of Sunbeam set out to finally achieve their goal after waiting quite a while... Debut. And so they started to release teasers and on March 6th, 2019 they released their first song "What is Love?" which quickly showed they were going to be a more cutesy girl group, as a lot of people predicted.

Feel Special Era
After some time off between comebacks, the girls of Sunbeam decided to plan another comeback, this time focusing extensively on the entirety of the comeback to make it as perfect as possible. As a group they decided to write a song together, and they planned to have a less cutesy concept for this song. After the song was finished they came together and decided it was to be a mini album and went to the company for more help with the other songs on the album. Each girl came up with a concept for their individual shots, Bohee was insistent on hers involving a very big gown, while Sori wanted a kind of techy, all white theme to hers. When they had everything finished, they started to release the teasers on social media starting on October 13th. On October 20th the official mv dropped, showing all the hard work the girls put in to this comeback.

Ten days later, as they started promotion, they made a huge rise in popularity. On November 1st they recieved a certified All-Kill for winning #1 on all 3 prominent music shows. They at the time were the second group to ever have achieved this feat. Due to their sudden boost of success, the company started looking into a better dorm building for the girls and even suggested they go on vacation to celebrate... but of course, they didn't as they wanted to continue to develop their skills for their next comeback.

Fun Facts & Other Info
Lilly, the groups leader, was born in Russia however is mostly of korean descent. She can speak six languages total.

Bohee, the group's center & visual has a twin who is set to debut in another group under belladonnna entertainment. The only way to differentiate her and her twin is her twin's beauty mark.

Hyojung, the group's main vocalist has british citizenship. She was born in Korea but moved to the UK while very young and stayed there for a long time before returning. She has unique visuals compared to the others due to her blue eyes.

Scandals & Rumors
The only scandal, if you can even call it that, sunbeam has faced so far was the adding of 2 new members who did not participate in fourteen. Some fans were upset that they didn't offer those spots to eliminated members in fourteen who actually competed to be in Sunbeam in the first place. Others didn't like that they added 2 new members at all and said that Sunbeam was better as 7. However, the girls clarified that they reached out to a few eliminated members (Sebin, Yora, Siyoon and Dayoung) and none of the girls they contacted could join the group as they had then made commitments to other things. After that, they decided to hold the bootcamp to find just as talented girls for the lineup.

Additionally, a rumor has recently come to light that a member of Sunbeam might be leaving, and will be replaced by previous fourteen contestant Hyeong Siyoon who previously rejected being put in the group, but has now opened her mind to it due to her original plans of debuting as a soloist not entirely working out yet, although she did debut in a collab group called Desire. It is unknown where this rumor started, or if it's true, and it is also unknown which member it is that might be leaving. There has been no official statement made by any of the members or by the company yet.