August - November 2018
TL,DR: Dawn and Hyuna came forward about being in a relationship since 2016, so Cube kicked them out. They both signed under P-Nation as soloists. Pentagon is now a 9 member group. They aren't allowed to talk about Dawn, and he's not allowed to talk about them.
Detailed version: (bear with me, this is a mess)
On 2 August 2018, a rumor hit the news media that Hyuna and Dawn are dating [1]. Cube immediately denied the rumor, supposedly within 20 minutes (I'm actually rounding this number up. I've seen as low as 10 minutes [2] and as high as 17 [3]). Some articles say that Hyuna and Dawn themselves denied it, but THIS IS MISLEADING! The denial statement was made by Cube. Even if you follow links/citations in articles saying that Hyuna and Dawn denied it, it always leads to an article saying that Cube made a statement denying it.
In an interview that same day, Hyuna and Dawn confirmed that they are dating [4]. Also, according to [4], Dawn told the Pentagon members beforehand, though there's no way to know if they supported his and Hyuna's decision to go public.
On August 8, Yanan made a post on Weibo (Chinese social media) saying "1=10 10=1" [5], meaning that the 10 members are 1 group, which was likely his way of showing support for Dawn being part of the group.
On August 22, Cube announced that they "temporarily" suspended Dawn from activities with Pentagon [6].
On September 7, Dawn posted on Pentagon's fancafé (sns) apologizing to fans and explaining that he just wanted to be honest instead of lying. I've seen two translation versions [7] [8]. [7] implies that he didn't anticipate being kicked out of Cube (Sept 13), since it says "I do feel relieved that I'll be able to join the members with the music that we all worked on together". But the translations aren't exactly the same so I suggest looking at both of them. I couldn't find his original post, but I couldn't look very hard since I don't know much Korean.
On September 10, Pentagon released the mini album Thumbs Up!. Dawn is credited as a songwriter on Naughty Boy and Skateboard but has no lines in any songs on the album. Also, Just Do It Yo!! has a line referring to Pentagon as "10 warriors", which was later removed in live performances (not replaced with a different number, just removed).
On September 13, Cube announced that they fired Hyuna and Dawn [9]. Their statement made it very clear that they were forcing Hyuna and Dawn to leave, not that Hyuna and Dawn chose to leave. Cube's stocks immediately plummeted [10], and within a few hours Cube reversed their decision to fire them [11].
According to Hyuna [12], Cube did not tell her that she was being fired - she found out from the news (I'm not sure about Dawn). She also said that she agreed to the early termination of her contract on September 19, though from her statement it sounds like she only agreed to it because Cube forced it on her and she didn't want to exacerbate the situation (sorry if I'm being a little biased here - I'm trying to keep this objective, but I have some strong opinions about it).
On October 15, Hyuna left Cube [13]. Most articles say that she and Cube "reached an agreement to terminate her contract", so it sounds like technically she left by choice at that point, though if you ask me it's obvious that she wouldn't have left if they hadn't fired her in the first place. But again, I'm being biased.
On November 14, Dawn officially left Cube and Pentagon [14]. Like for Hyuna, most articles say they reached an agreement.
Supposedly there were some times throughout this mess when Pentagon didn't say "tentastic" as their introduction catchphrase, but I don't have proof of that, I've just seen random comments about it. I'm not sure when they started saying it again, but they still use it nowadays. In fact, Jinho even confirmed in a video in March 2020 that "tentastic" refers to the original number of members, not just their debut date (10/10/16) [15]. So evidently Cube lets them get away with vague mentions of the original number of members, but I don't think they have ever specifically talked about/mentioned Dawn by name. (They used to say "pentastic", which they came up with themselves during Pentagon Maker, and then in Oct 2016 they changed it to "tentastic" [16]).
On/around 26 January 2019, Dawn posted on Instagram and Yanan posted on Weibo from the same place (at least people say it looks like the same place) [17]. I found Dawn's original post on IG [18] but unfortunately I can't scroll down far enough on Yanan's Weibo [19] to get his post. (If anyone has a Weibo account, I would appreciate having a fresh screenshot of his post that includes the date, as well as for [5]! It seems like only someone with an account can view the posts, and I'm having trouble signing up.)
Now after reading all that, if you want an inkling of positivity about this whole mess, there's a Jack Pod episode where Pentagon said they think this time period made them closer [20]. (Jack Pod is Pentagon's podcast on Dive Studios YouTube channel.) At least it seems like they have bittersweet memories of it, so it's not all sad.
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Pentagon: Song Guide & History
Non-FictionPentagon is a K-Pop group. The main purpose of this book is a "song guide" to Pentagon's music. It lists information about the inspiration and/or creative process of specific songs, as stated by Pentagon themselves. I'll also provide a general overv...
