Lucas Leaves SM Entertainment, Closing His Last NCT-Era Tie

Lucas (루카스) is officially out at SM Entertainment. The label said on April 24 that his exclusive contract ended that day, according to SM's Weverse notice as translated and republished by Soompi. That closes the final formal tie between the former NCT member and the company that launched him in 2018, nearly a year after he exited WayV and the wider NCT system. If the last two years felt like SM keeping Lucas in a holding pattern, this announcement finally ends the ambiguity. It also gives the story a cleaner shape than the company's earlier half-measures. Lucas was no longer in the group structure, but he was still carrying SM's name. Now even that final business link is gone, and the next move will belong to him, not to one of K-pop's biggest legacy agencies.

SM's statement ends the last gray area

SM Entertainment's wording was brief but decisive. The company said it had concluded Lucas's exclusive contract as of April 24 and thanked fans for their support, while also saying it would cheer him on in his new chapter, according to the agency statement republished by Soompi. The Korea Herald separately reported that the notice was released through Weverse, which matters because this was not rumor, lawyer chatter, or fan translation noise. It came from SM's own official channel. For Lucas, that makes the update less about shock and more about closure. The real headline is that SM has now finished unwinding a relationship it had already stripped of most public momentum. After a long stretch where Lucas existed in a weird post-group, still-signed limbo, the company finally chose a full stop instead of another vague promise about future activities.

Lucas had already left NCT and WayV in 2023

This contract ending is significant because Lucas's split from SM happened in stages. He left NCT and WayV in May 2023, then remained under SM for solo activity until now. That timeline is why today's update feels more like the final paperwork on a story that has been dragging than a sudden bombshell. As reported by Korea JoongAng Daily, SM positioned Lucas's first solo single Renegade as the start of a new chapter, with three English-language tracks and a push centered on self-reinvention. That rollout made it clear the company had already stopped treating him as part of the NCT machine. Fans just had not gotten the legal full stop yet. In that sense, SM's April 24 notice is less a pivot than the formal end of an awkward transition period.

Why this matters for SM's wider NCT reset

Lucas's exit lands after a month when SM's grip on the NCT ecosystem already looked shakier than usual. In our coverage of Mark leaving NCT and SM Entertainment and our breakdown of NCT's recent SM exodus, we noted how contract decisions are starting to reshape one of K-pop's most ambitious group systems in public. Lucas is not part of that active-member wave anymore, but his departure still fits the same bigger picture: SM is closing out older, messy chapters while trying to sell a more stable next era for NCT. That is why this story carries more weight than a standard agency goodbye. It is another reminder that the company's long-running expansion model looks a lot less untouchable once contracts, scandals, and solo ambitions all stop pointing in the same direction.

Lucas's profile was always bigger than the company could quietly park

Lucas never felt like a small-name catalog artist SM could tuck away forever. He debuted as one of NCT's most immediately recognizable faces, later crossed into WayV, and then into global-facing projects that expanded his visibility outside the usual fandom lanes. According to NextShark's 2019 coverage of SM's US-focused crossover rollout, Lucas was part of a push designed to broaden the label's reach beyond its usual core fandom bubble. That wider profile is part of why the last two years stayed noisy even when official updates were thin. On Reddit and fan communities, reactions to the April 24 news leaned less toward surprise and more toward overdue resolution after a long in-between phase. We get it. The contract notice does not erase the controversy that reshaped his career, but it does end the corporate limbo. From here, Lucas either builds an independent second act that can stand on its own, or this becomes the clean final line under his SM era.