A farewell note sent by Kim Jong-hyun, better known by his stage name, Jonghyun, and as front man in Korean-pop sensation SHINee, was uploaded to social media on Tuesday. It points to the crushing pressure of being a celebrity in Korea.
Kim was found unconscious at a private hotel in Seoul on Monday and died in hospital. Seoul police are now treating his death as suicide.
The police report that Kim’s older sister received a text message on Monday suggesting that the star was going to kill himself. And on Tuesday, a longer suicide note was uploaded on the Instagram account of Nine, a musician with modern rock band Dear Cloud. According to Nine’s management, the note was handed to her two weeks before Kim’s death.
“I am broken from inside. The depression that had been slowly eating me up finally devoured me and I couldn’t defeat it,” the 27-year old singer-songwriter wrote at the beginning of his note. Kim also wrote that his doctor had blamed Kim’s personality for being unable to cast off the depression. His note does not specify what he has been burdened by, but he briefly suggests that being a celebrity added pressure.
“Maybe I wasn’t supposed to come up against the world; maybe I wasn’t supposed to be known to the world; I’ve learned that’s what (makes my life) difficult. How come I chose that,” it reads.
The Korean entertainment is notoriously high pressure. It includes a “Hunger Games”-like work environment, where every colleague is also a competitor, and only the strongest survive. Many talents are recruited as teenagers, and may not be emotionally mature enough to handle the discipline and the scrutiny. The Korean public set high standards of behavior and physical appearance, and use ubiquitous social media to pass instant judgement.
Since the late 1990s when Korean pop, film and TV dramas grew to become a phenomenon around Asia, several other young Korean talents have committed suicide. Many have left behind notes about how harmful the industry is.
Korean-American singer Charles Park, known by his stage name Seo Ji-won, was one of the first K-pop celebrities to take his own life – on 1 Jan 1996. In a note, he confessed concerns about the sudden success of his debut album, and whether its follow-up, which he had finished recording before his death, would be equally successful. He was 19.
Other actresses and female artists have killed themselves, complaining of depression and disillusionment with the industry. Jang Ja-yeon, who had a supporting role in the Korean version of hit TV series, “Boys Over Flowers,” wrote in her suicide note that she had been forced to perform sexual favors to so-called sponsors who help talent get roles in popular TV series or films.
A source close to actress Jeong Da-bin, who died in 2007, told the police that Jeong had been depressed over her lack of work, the imprisonment of her previous manager, and online attacks about her appearance.
Actress-turned-singer U;Nee hung herself the same year. According to the police report, people close to U;Nee stated that she had become depressed by online criticism, especially attacks over her sexy style.
The reasons for Kim’s decision to kill himself are not yet clear. The last words from one of the industry’s most popular acts, however, reveal some of the dark underbelly beneath K-pop’s gorgeous, glittering façade.
From article in Variety
