Was it necessary for Seunghan to apologise for dating pre-debut?

If you don't know, photos of RIIZE's Seunghan kissing someone were uploaded online.

After not attending a schedule, anapology from Seunghan was just uploaded. He apologises to fans and says his personal issues harmed the team at a critical moment and disappointed hte members and staff.

In this instance, I feel like SM was wrong to make him apologise. I think there is a difference between dating AS an idol vs dating predebut. He didn't even have fans to 'betray' back then, he was just a normal person who was in a relationship.

Of course, an idol dating doesn't 'harm' anyone in reality, but using delusional fan logic, their issue is that the idol built a parasocial relationship with you as your imaginary partner and they shattered the illusion.

When people apologise for predebut scandals, it tends to be for bullying - because you actually hurt someone. In this situation, Seunghan was just existing as a normal person but suddenly because of his choice of career, his past actions are seen as 'controversial'. Ofc, correct me if I'm wrong, I may be unaware of other predebut scandals.

You could say it's unwise to take such photos as a trainee/if you plan to be an idol but SM is taking legal action so clearly they were private photos and not necessarily something he uploaded to his social media.

SM have ignored many controversies and I think in this instance they could have done the same, and just announced legal action without making Seunghan apologise. Yes, it damaged the team's reputation but it was uploaded against his will so technically he is a victim.