Chinese AI girl group BabyQueen fakes member pregnancy, drops aespa cover the next day
BabyQueen's fictional pregnancy announcement for AI member Miti hit 78M Weibo views before management admitted the story was made up.
A fake pregnancy, 78 million views, and an aespa cover
BabyQueen — a four-member AI girl group based in Liaoning Province, China — announced on the 13th that member Miti was pregnant and suspending all public activities. The post hit over 78 million views on Weibo. The group had roughly 1,100 followers at the time.
The day after, on the 14th, BabyQueen dropped a cover music video of aespa's Next Level.
Management later apologized and admitted the pregnancy story was entirely fictional. They said they had been struggling to manage multiple AI idols simultaneously and decided to scale back operations. Using pregnancy as the reason for Miti's hiatus "was an inappropriate decision." They also clarified that BabyQueen is a hobby project started by a few young women who like K-pop, with no profit motive from the start.
What the incident exposes about AI content
BabyQueen was formed in September, which means the group was barely weeks old when the controversy hit.
Social welfare researcher Zhang Rong from Hubei Province said the incident points to structural problems in AI-generated content. AI has lowered the barrier to creating content, but consistently producing high-quality narratives remains hard. The burden of verifying authenticity has shifted onto the public.
Zhang also raised a sharper question: whether the emotional and moral weight attached to women's pregnancy and childbirth was being used as a tool to attract attention.
(The Next Level cover landing the day after a fabricated pregnancy announcement is a choice, and not a subtle one.)
Cheer the story
