The Trainee Who Almost Left: May on the Years Before RESCENE

On 8 August 2026, five people sat down in an MBC studio for an episode built around a meal. The programme was ‘전지적 참견 시점’, the show had reached its 410th episode and RESCENE were there as the first act it had ever booked as solo guests — no other celebrity table, no shared running order. Somewhere in that hour, May stopped describing the good year and described the years before it. She said she had thought about leaving. She said why: ‘저한테 확신이 부족했다’ — she did not have enough certainty about herself. Then she described the day her parents came in, and who walked through the door with them.

A first for the programme

‘전지적 참견 시점’ is an MBC observation show whose Korean title plays on the literary idea of an all-seeing narrator; its usual format sets several celebrities alongside the managers who work with them and watches the footage back in the studio. The Fact reported that RESCENE appeared on episode 410, broadcast on 8 August 2026, as the programme’s first solo guests — 프로그램 최초 단독 게스트 — with all five members in the studio.

• Sports Today reported that the episode was built around the group’s meal after finishing promotions for ‘Pretty Girl’ with three music-show wins. In Korea, a music-show win is a weekly first place awarded on one of the televised countdown programmes, scored from sales, streaming, broadcast points and viewer votes.
• The group had been on the programme before. The Fact reported that Woni appeared on 11 July 2026, showing her home city of Geoje.

What May said about the trainee years

A trainee, in the Korean system, is a signed but undebuted performer who takes daily vocal, dance and language classes at an agency, often for years, with no guarantee of ever being placed in a group. May’s account was about that stretch of time.

Star News reported that she said she had considered quitting, and gave the reason as a lack of confidence in herself: ‘저한테 확신이 부족했다.’ According to the same report, she said she could see what the other members were able to do and was not satisfied with herself.

Sports Today reported a second line from the broadcast: ‘희망이 보이지 않아 팀을 떠날 생각까지 했다’ — with no prospect in sight, she had even thought about leaving the team. Per that report, the head of the agency and a director tried to talk her out of leaving.

The day her parents came in

The detail May chose to tell was a single afternoon. ‘그때 어머니, 아버지까지 다 오셨는데 원이 언니가 딱 와줬다,’ she said, as reported by Star News: both her mother and father had come, and Woni came in right then. Sports Today reported that Woni went to speak to May’s parents herself, and Star News reported that she asked them to trust the company.

Woni also spoke about her own beginning on the same programme. ‘아이돌은 부자만 할 수 있는 줄 알았다,’ she said, according to Sports Today — she had thought only wealthy people could become idols.

May’s conclusion, as Star News reported it, was about the five-member line-up as it stands: this was the set of members that was meant to happen, and a different combination might not have worked.

The clip MBC posted the same night

MBC’s own entertainment channel published the trainee-years segment as a standalone upload on 8 August 2026, running three minutes and forty-one seconds, with a title that names it plainly: 연습생 시절의 이야기를 솔직하게 나누는 메이.

Read through the YouTube Data API on 27 August 2026, that upload showed 276,288 views and 5,622 likes — a measure of how far the segment travelled in its first three weeks, on the broadcaster’s own channel rather than a fan re-upload.

What the year has brought since

The reason the story lands is the distance between the two halves of the same conversation. The Fact reported the changes the group described on the programme, comparing the present with their previous appearance:

• a surge in requests for music-show challenges — the short dance clips filmed backstage at countdown programmes and posted to social platforms;
• an audition competition rate more than ten times higher, meaning far more applicants per available place at the agency;
• over a hundred advertising enquiries;
• offers of ambassadorships.

Set beside that, the sentence May chose to say out loud on national television was about the period when none of it was visible yet.

The line from Goyang

There is a version of this story that reached May before she told it herself. In a birthday video from the city of Goyang, juniors from her old middle school thanked her for getting through the trainee years and becoming a senior they could be proud of — ‘연습생 시절을 버텨내고 자랑스러운 선배가 되어줘 고맙다’ (see the earlier piece on the Goyang birthday video).

Schoolchildren said the hard part in one clause. On 8 August 2026, on a programme that had never given an hour to a single act before, May filled it in: the doubt, the thought of leaving, the day her parents came in and the person who came in with them.

Key takeaways

• On MBC’s ‘전지적 참견 시점’, broadcast 8 August 2026, May said she had considered quitting during her trainee years, giving the reason as a lack of certainty about herself: ‘저한테 확신이 부족했다.’
• Sports Today reported a further line from the broadcast — ‘희망이 보이지 않아 팀을 떠날 생각까지 했다’ — and reported that the agency’s head and a director tried to talk her out of leaving.
• May described the day both her parents came in and Woni came with them; Star News reported that Woni asked her parents to trust the company.
• The Fact reported that RESCENE were the programme’s first solo guests, on episode 410, with all five members in the studio.
• The Fact also reported the group’s account of the past year: a surge in music-show challenge requests, an audition competition rate more than ten times higher, over a hundred advertising enquiries and ambassadorship offers.
• MBC’s entertainment channel posted the 3-minute-41-second trainee-years clip on 8 August 2026; read via the YouTube Data API on 27 August 2026 it showed 276,288 views and 5,622 likes.