Full Profile of Chungha
Chungha was born in South Korea on February 9, 1996, with the name Kim Chan-mi. She later changed her name, legally, to Kim Chung-ha. Her English name is Annie Kim. She is 161 cm (5’3″) tall and weighs 44 kg (97 lbs). She is a student of the dance department at Sejong University. She became well-known after ranking 4th on a survival show Mnet Produce 101 and debuted as an I.O.I member. She is now a solo female artist with remarkable talents and achievements. She has her own Instagram account (@chungha_official) and official fan cafe (MNH-Chungha). Her fandom name is Byulharang.
Fun Facts About Chungha
She lived in Dallas, Texas for 7-8 years. She revealed on Weekly Idol that her role model is Lee ji-eun (IU) because as a soloist, IU can do many things. As of 2019, she has an estimated net worth around 3 million USD. She first auditioned for YG Entertainment and spent time as a trainee of JYP Entertainment before signing with M&H Entertainment.
Her nickname is “Alcohol” because “Chungha” is a brand name of alcohol drink. She trained under M&H Entertainment for 3 years and 3 months, but she said she trained in dance for a total of six or seven years. She likes to dance and watch movies alone. She can speak Korean and English. She used to be a backup dancer for B1A4 and appeared in B1A4’s Baby Good Night music video in 2012.
She also appeared in Pentagon’s Pretty Pretty music video in 2017.
She said her best friends are I.O.I members. She is close to Stray Kid’s Chan because both of them were JYP trainees together. She participated in Genie Music’s artist donation where she had to do karaoke and gained points. Each point was worth $9 and would be given for the charity. She ended up getting a high score of 98, so she gave $850 for children with hearing loss. As of 2019, she has over 2.2 million followers on her Instagram.
Pre-debut Story
According to Koreaboo, Chungha talked about her life before debuting in an interview with GQ Korea. She won the third place in JYP’s audition in 2012 and joined JYP Entertainment to become a trainee. She was a member of a group that was set to debut but, unfortunately, the pre-debut group broke up. She relied on her fellow members before the group broke up and hardly accepted reality. She was only 19 and was still attending college. She worked part-time and spent time drinking with her friends, just like other college students. One year later, when she thought she had lost hope, she found another opportunity. She was about to meet a friend in Sinsa, but she was late because she was very tired. But she happened to meet a manager that later connected her with the CEO from an agency that became her current agency, M&H Entertainment. “If I didn’t go out that morning, I may not be where I am now,” she said.
Joined Mnet’s Produce 101
Chungha became a contestant on the Mnet survival show Produce 101 Season 1 from January 22 to April 1, 2016, as a representative of M&H Entertainment. She started the first episode well, as she showed her talent after introducing herself. She was graded A by the judges’ evaluation.
On the second episode, the contestants were asked to practice the song Pick Me to be performed at M!Countdown. They were recorded individually and Chungha got to maintain her grade A.
On this episode Chungha and Seojung got to show off their dancing and singing skill with Beyoncé’s Yoncé.
On the third and fourth episodes, the contestants had to perform debut songs from various girl-groups in front of live audiences. Chungha and other four contestants performed SISTAR’s Push Push.
For the sixth and seventh episodes, the contestants performed songs based on which role they wanted to debut as. There were three categories: vocal, dance, and rap, and each category had several representative songs. Chungha chose to perform a dance song, Bang Bang, by Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj with other six contestants. She was ranked 12th out of the 22 contestants who chose dance songs.
For the eighth and ninth episodes, the girls had to choose between five original songs and Chungha chose the girl-crush pop song Fingertips.
On the tenth episode, when asked about the most popular trainees, Kim Chungha was ranked 5th most popular. For the eleventh, and final, episode, the contestants performed the debut song Crush and Chungha was ranked 4th, putting her in position to debut as an I.O.I member.
Here is Chungha’s ranking progress throughout Produce 101!
Debuted as IOI’s Dancing Machine
Chungha and ten other girls were debuted in a project group named I.O.I (shortened for Ideal of Idol) on May 4, 2016, and the group was planned to last for ten months. They debuted by releasing the mini-album Chrysalis, with the title track Dream Girls. She made a huge impression due to her dancing skill when she was still on the survival show, and became the group’s main dancer and lead vocalist. They made a debut stage on Mnet M!Countdown with the tracks Knock Knock Knock and Dream Girls.
On June 10, it was revealed that Chungha would be included in a seven-member sub-unit group of I.O.I by YMC Entertainment. They would be promoting a single track, Whatta Man (Good Man), during summer in 2016. Chungha had another opportunity to showcase her choreography skill (after Bang Bang on Produce 101). It was reported that there were three teams being contacted for the choreography of the track, but they ended up choosing Chungha’s because hers had the highest quality.
No wonder she was called the dancing machine of I.O.I!
