SAINT SATINE: Everything You Need to Know About HYBE x Geffen's New Global Girl Group
They've been building toward this moment for over a year. On May 12, 2026, during the live finale of World Scout: The Final Piece in Los Angeles, HYBE and Geffen Records officially unveiled SAINT SATINE, their second multinational girl group and the long-awaited successor to KATSEYE. Four members. Four countries. One name. Here's everything you need to know.
Who Are SAINT SATINE?
SAINT SATINE is a four-member global girl group formed under the joint venture of HYBE and Geffen Records (a Universal Music Group label), the same partnership that brought us KATSEYE in 2024. The group consists of Emily (USA), Lexie (Sweden), Samara (Brazil), and Sakura (Japan), an age range spanning 16 to 21, and a geographic spread that reflects HYBE and Geffen's explicit ambition to build acts that, in their own words, "transcend national, cultural, and artistic boundaries."
The name itself is intentional and layered. According to Son Sung-deuk, executive creator at HYBE America and the performance director of the audition project, "Saint" represents strong charisma and a commanding musical presence, while "Satine" symbolizes a softer, more elegant, and sophisticated image. Together, they capture the duality the group is being built around: powerhouse performance energy wrapped in an approachable, refined aesthetic.
SAINT SATINE arrives with a distinctly younger and softer identity than KATSEYE, whose members were generally older and more polished at debut. With an average age of just 19.25, the group is clearly being positioned to appeal to Gen Z audiences who value relatability and authenticity alongside talent. Industry observers have noted this is a deliberate differentiation, not a copy of KATSEYE, but an evolution of the model.
The Members
🇺🇸 Emily Kelavos: The Performance Anchor
Full name: Emily Kelavos
Birthday: February 14, 2006 (Age 20)
From: Dallas, Texas, USA
If there's one member who was built for the stage from the ground up, it's Emily. Born and raised in Dallas, she began her professional performance career at 14, training as a competitive dancer long before the HYBE universe ever entered her life. Her reputation was established during The Debut: Dream Academy, where she became known for her explosive stage presence and technical precision in choreography, finishing in 9th place in the finale.
Her post-Dream Academy years only added to her résumé. She appeared as a background performer alongside XG at Coachella 2025, and starred in and choreographed the music video for "Homewrecked" by Adéla Jergová, a fellow Dream Academy alumna. Emily's energy on stage reads as instinctive rather than calculated, which gives her performances an immediacy that many polished trainees struggle to replicate. She is widely considered SAINT SATINE's main dancer and performance anchor, the member who will set the visual standard for their choreography. Within the group, Emily is also known for her close friendships with KATSEYE members Lara and Megan, her former Dream Academy co-stars.
🇸🇪 Lexie Levi: The Creative Architect
Full name: Lexie Linnéa Levin
Birthday: August 28, 2004 (Age 21)
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Lexie is the eldest member of SAINT SATINE, and arguably the one with the most complex backstory coming in. Born in Stockholm to a multicultural family, she is of Swedish, Chilean, German, and Russian descent, she began writing songs and producing music as a teenager, driven by a creative instinct that she has always described as deeply personal. That multicultural background isn't just biographical detail; it genuinely shapes her music, blending heartfelt lyricism with rhythmically diverse influences.
She joined The Debut: Dream Academy in August 2023 but withdrew after just seven weeks, citing the intense and highly competitive environment not aligning with her personal goals and mental health. "It's hard leaving something that means so much to you," she wrote on Instagram at the time, "but sometimes it's actually what's best for you." That decision won her enormous goodwill from fans who admired her self-awareness, and it also shaped who she became in the years that followed, an independent artist who continued developing her craft behind the scenes, producing music and writing songs on her own terms.
Her return through SAINT SATINE, therefore, carries real emotional weight. Industry observers have positioned her as the group's creative architect, the member most likely to have a hand in shaping their musical output. Fans and analysts alike speculate she will eventually co-write or co-produce tracks for the group, a dynamic that HYBE increasingly values in newer-generation acts. Her nickname is Lex, and she describes herself in three words: warm-hearted, sweet, dreamy.
🇧🇷 Samara Siqueira: The Voice
Full name: Samara Siqueira
Birthday: September 11, 2005 (Age 20)
Nickname: Sami
From: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Many fans of the group are already saying it plainly: Samara carries the vocals. Born in Rio de Janeiro, she came to The Debut: Dream Academy as a relatively unknown talent and left it as one of the competition's most respected performers, finishing in 7th place. What set her apart wasn't volume or spectacle, but the emotional control and technical reliability she brought to live stages, described by Allkpop at the time as "soulful yet delicate." Even under the extreme pressure of a survival show format, Samara consistently delivered composed, grounded performances that resonated deeply with international viewers, particularly across Latin America, where her fanbase remains exceptionally strong.
Fluent in both English and Portuguese, she also meaningfully broadens the group's global accessibility beyond the North American and East Asian markets HYBE typically prioritizes. Before Dream Academy, she appeared in music videos for "Good Days" by The Bootcampers and "Come Together" by Now United & Bootcampers. Off stage, Sami is known for being a dedicated reader, and she has a very specific sleeping ritual: she won't drift off unless her phone is completely cleared of notifications and switched to airplane mode. She describes herself as resilient, genuine, and determined, three words that track with everything fans have observed about her since day one.
🇯🇵 Tobi Sakura: The Final Piece
Full name: Tobi Sakura (飛鳥)
Birthday: February 20, 2010 (Age 16)
From: Toyama, Japan
Sakura is the youngest member of SAINT SATINE and the one who arrived through the most extraordinary path. She was selected as the winner of World Scout: The Final Piece on May 12, 2026, beating out over 14,000 Japanese applicants for the final spot in the group. Her journey through the competition was remarkable for one specific reason: she had essentially no prior experience in singing or dancing before auditioning. What she had, according to judges and production staff, was raw star quality, most notably, an exceptional command of facial expressions and an instinctive stage presence that made her stand out even as a complete newcomer to performance.
During the competition, she trained relentlessly. Reports from inside the program noted she practiced alone for approximately three hours beyond the standard group sessions and continued late into the night. She has said that she believes she worked harder than any of the other participants, and that belief seemed to show when it counted most, in the finale, she performed "PARTY b4 the PARTY" with Emily, Lexie, and Samara, executing the choreography at a level that surprised viewers who had tracked her early-competition struggles.
At 16, she is a fan of LE SSERAFIM and has a love of makeup. Her parents have been described as enormously supportive of her idol dreams throughout the process. Her selection as the final member was not without some controversy. fans raised concerns about a minor being placed alongside members aged 20 and 21, but this is a dynamic that has precedent within the HYBE system; KATSEYE's own Yoonchae was also 16 when her group debuted. Sakura herself seems unfazed, and her debut performance suggested she belongs exactly where she is.
The Pre-Debut Chapter: Prelude
Before there was SAINT SATINE, there was Prelude.
The story of the group's pre-debut era began in August 2025, when HYBE and Geffen Records announced World Scout: The Final Piece. a new audition project that would find the fourth and final member of a girl group already partially assembled. Over three consecutive days starting August 25, 2025, the three confirmed members were revealed one by one: first Samara, then Emily, then Lexie. To mark the moment, the label released a short introductory film on YouTube featuring all three together, this became known to fans as the "Prelude" video, and it gave the pre-debut project its informal name.
During this period, the three girls lived and trained together in Los Angeles, building chemistry before the fourth member had even been selected. In early 2026, they shared a vlog announcing they had officially moved in together, mirroring the same K-pop-inspired residential strategy KATSEYE had used in their own early days. They also attended Coachella 2026 as a trio, their public appearances generating steady fan interest even before a debut was formally scheduled. In April 2026, Emily, Lexie, and Samara appeared together at the Billboard Women in Music event in Hollywood, their last major public moment as a three-piece before the group's final lineup was locked.
Meanwhile, the search for the fourth member was unfolding in Japan. World Scout: The Final Piece aired exclusively on Japanese streaming platform ABEMA from February 24 to May 12, 2026, with a judging and training panel that included LE SSERAFIM's Sakura and Kazuha, ILLIT's Moka and Iroha, and television personality Sashihara Rino. From roughly 14,000 applicants, four finalists emerged: Hiori, Ayana, Sakura, and Aoi. After advancing through the competition, Sakura and Ayana faced each other in the finale (held live in Los Angeles) with Sakura ultimately taking the final spot.
At the moment of her announcement, the group became SAINT SATINE. Social media accounts were renamed, the first group photo was released, and the quartet performed together live for the first time on the finale stage. The Prelude chapter was officially closed.
What's Next
SAINT SATINE is moving quickly. On May 12, 2026, the same night as the finale, the group released two singles on all major streaming platforms: "PARTY b4 the PARTY", their energetic debut track performed live during the finale broadcast, and "WE RIDE", an R&B-leaning second single that also features World Scout runner-up Ayana. The releases gave fans their first real taste of the group's sonic direction, and reaction has been immediate and largely enthusiastic.
Their official debut album, Shining Star, is slated for May 20, 2026, just eight days after the group name reveal. The compressed timeline is a deliberate reflection of the reality-show accelerated formation process HYBE and Geffen have refined, keeping momentum from the finale rolling directly into a full debut campaign.
Beyond the album, the group is expected to be active on Weverse, HYBE's fan platform, and to follow KATSEYE's blueprint of simultaneous multi-market promotion rather than the traditional approach of establishing a domestic base before expanding internationally. With members covering the US, Latin America, Europe, and Japan, SAINT SATINE is designed from day one to speak to a global audience without a home-market anchor.
HYBE's broader corporate pivot (what the company is calling its HYBE 2.0 strategy) also provides relevant context for where SAINT SATINE fits. Announced in August 2024 and further articulated in May 2026 with a new company motto, HYBE 2.0 frames the company as a "global entertainment lifestyle platform company based on music and technology," with an emphasis on fan immersion and cross-platform engagement. SAINT SATINE, as the label's newest global act, is almost certainly part of that vision's next phase.
The question now isn't whether SAINT SATINE has the talent, the pre-debut footage and the two early singles make a strong case that they do. The question is the same one KATSEYE faced at the start: can a group assembled through international reality television build the kind of sustained, organic fanbase that survives past the initial excitement? With the right music, the right rollout, and four members who each bring something distinct and irreplaceable to the table, the early signs are genuinely promising.
The Prelude is over. The real story is just beginning.