SEOUL - It hurts when a pop star gets medical treatment ahead of others in an accident.

That was alleged on Wednesday by a taxi passenger who said paramedics tended first to Taeyeon, the leader and main singer of Girls' Generation. The K-pop celebrity was driving her Mercedes-Benz when it hit a taxi at a traffic light at around 8pm on Tuesday.

The impact caused the taxi to crash into an Audi car in front.

Police said Taeyeon had not been driving under the influence of alcohol in the incident that inflicted injuries to two taxi passengers and the Audi driver.

The singer was not hurt and her agency S.M. Entertainment apologised to the victims, reported The Korea Herald.

However, a controversy erupted on Wednesday when a person claiming to be one of the passengers expressed unhappiness.

"I don't know if it was because she is famous but (paramedics) wanted to take her to the hospital first and told us, the victims, to wait," the person posted on Instagram, with a photo of the crash.

The passenger added that the rescue workers shrugged off the taxi driver's injury as "just a scratch" and refused to let him into the ambulance.

Gangnam Fire Station, which dispatched the rescue workers to the scene, later said that they took care of Taeyeon first because they believed her condition to be more severe.