In May 2015, Jeon participated in Mnet reality survival program Sixteen, where she was pitted against fifteen other trainees from the agency to secure a spot in its first girl group in five years (now Twice) after the debut of Miss A but was eliminated in the final round and continued as a trainee. In 2015, she appeared in label-mate Got7's " Stop Stop It" music video alongside other female trainees from then. That same year, Jeon auditioned for JYP Entertainment with " Lonely" by 2NE1 and was accepted into the agencies trainee program. She was also cast in a cameo role alongside her sister in the 2014 film Ode to My Father by director Yoon Je-kyoon who her father had acquaintance with and who was in need of two biracial children. In August 2014, Jeon, her mother and her grandmother briefly made an appearance on KBS2's Hello Counselor among the studio audience.
2014–2017: Career beginnings and debut with I.O.I That same year, she sang and made an appearance in a music video for English education. In 2013, as a part of the Seoul Midong Elementary School's Taekwondo demonstration team, she appeared in the Children's Day Special for Let's Go! Dream Team Season 2, where she paired with Park Joon-hyung. From her fourth year in elementary school, Jeon auditioned at various entertainment companies in South Korea, of which both her mother and father were supportive. Around this time, Jeon saw Rihanna's " Don't Stop the Music", the first music video she had ever seen which marked the starting point of her desire to become a singer. Due to her mixed descent, Jeon often faced with bullying and discrimination at school and wanted to "blend in" and look more "Korean" by dyeing her hair black, changing her eye color, and receiving plastic surgery on her eyes and nose. She initially attended a school for foreigners before transferring to Seoul Midong Elementary School at her father's suggestion to practice Taekwondo. During her childhood, Jeon's interest in career ranged from wanting to become a flight attendant to becoming an actress or an athlete in Taekwondo. Four-year-old Jeon made her first-ever television appearance on KBS News in an interview with her father while clearing snow within their neighbourhood. The area was also where her father previously resided in to study Taekwondo before he moved back to Canada. In September 2001, six-month-old Jeon and her parents moved to Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, South Korea after her mother developed homesickness. Life and career 2001–2013: Early life Įnnik Somi Douma ( Korean: 전소미 Jeon So-mi) was born on March 9, 2001, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada to a Korean mother, Jeon Sun-hee, and Dutch-Canadian father, Matthew Douma and has a younger sister, Evelyn Maverick Douma (born in October 2009).