I read this entire comment section before writing this, and I’m going to answer people according to what they actually said, because different arguments are being mixed together here. The investigation did not stop in March 2025, and anyone still commenting on this case should at least know what happened afterwards. On May 26, 2026, the Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Kim Se-ui, citing risks of flight and destruction of evidence. On June 23, prosecutors indicted him while detained after supplementary investigation, including forensic examination, alleging that material had been edited or distorted and that false information had been disseminated about Kim Soo Hyun. Then, on July 29, police completed the separate Child Welfare Act investigation against Kim Soo Hyun and decided not to refer him for prosecution because they found insufficient objective evidence establishing the alleged underage relationship or abuse. These are not fan claims; they are police, prosecutorial and court developments. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526004651315https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260623158700004https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10824685
@Marckye N, you specifically called him a “groomer and a liar.” The “liar” part has a factual basis only in one limited sense: Kim Soo Hyun admitted that when the 2024 photograph appeared during Queen of Tears, he publicly denied a past adult relationship that had actually existed. You are free to judge him for that. But “groomer” is a completely different accusation. Police specifically investigated whether a relationship or abusive conduct existed while Kim Sae Ron was legally a child and found insufficient evidence to establish a Child Welfare Act offence. His admission about concealing an adult relationship does not become proof that he groomed her as a minor. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10824685
@RicardoBarros, @Mia, @Rei, @min min, @qBlood, @marzzz and @k3tamin, your comments go further because you describe him as a “paedophile,” “pedo,” someone who “dated a minor,” a “predator who sleeps with teenagers,” or treat the underage relationship as an established fact. That is precisely the allegation police investigated and did not substantiate. Under Korea’s Child Welfare Act, a child is a person under 18, and investigators examined the allegations across that relevant period. If you have authenticated evidence that establishes what police could not establish, then provide it. Otherwise, repeating the allegation is not evidence of the allegation. Korean Child Welfare Act: https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/eng/engLsInfoR.do?lsiSeq=252711 Police result: https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10824685
@Rei, you also said the investigations are “still ongoing,” so Kim Soo Hyun has not been officially cleared. This needs precision. Other cases are still ongoing, particularly the prosecutions and investigations concerning people accused of spreading the allegations, but the specific Child Welfare Act investigation against Kim Soo Hyun was concluded at police level with a non-referral decision for insufficient evidence. That does not mean a criminal court acquitted him after a trial, because there was no prosecution to try. It means police investigated that allegation and did not find sufficient grounds to send him to prosecutors. The ongoing trial of Kim Se-ui is about Kim Se-ui’s alleged conduct, not a future trial that will decide whether Kim Soo Hyun violated the Child Welfare Act. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
@Mai, your position is more detailed, so it deserves a more detailed answer. You pointed to photographs, a military letter, the fact that he later admitted an adult relationship, Gold Medalist’s handling of Kim Sae Ron after the DUI, his decision to distance himself, and the possibility that the Korean justice system was corrupted. A photograph proves two people were together when that photograph was taken; it does not establish when a romantic relationship began. A military letter proves correspondence; it does not establish a sexual relationship. His admission proves he denied a previous adult relationship publicly in 2024; it does not prove an underage one. Police examined the alleged minor relationship itself and did not substantiate it. I also reconstructed both careers, military service, agencies, filming periods, locations and public schedules precisely to test whether the alleged grooming timeline made sense. If you think my reconstruction is wrong, point to the date or source that is wrong and I will correct it: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-26929672
@Mai and @Flashtone, you both specifically raised corruption or money as an explanation for the investigative outcome. Corruption can exist in South Korea, as it can anywhere, but that does not prove corruption in this case. If you claim Kim Soo Hyun bought investigators, show evidence of that transaction: who was bribed, what was paid, who arranged it, and where is the supporting document, witness or financial trail? South Korea recently prosecuted its own former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who had vastly more political and institutional power than any actor; he was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment for insurrection. If the highest office in the country cannot simply make prosecution disappear, then saying an actor from a non-political, non-wealthy family secretly controls police, prosecutors and courts requires actual evidence, not suspicion. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-court-sentences-ex-president-yoon-life-prison-insurrection-2026-02-19/
@Flashtone, your other main argument is financial: you said Kim Sae Ron begged the agency for a chance to earn money and repay it, that they refused, and that Kim Soo Hyun was therefore a “demon.” That issue is much more complicated than “rich ex refuses to help.” Gold Medalist, not Kim Soo Hyun personally, was the creditor. The company says it advanced or covered very large liabilities resulting from the DUI and related contracts, leaving roughly ₩700 million on its books, and that by the end of 2023 it had already classified that amount as bad debt because it believed she could not repay it. Korean corporate and tax law requires losses and debt forgiveness of that scale to be documented; this was not simply Kim Soo Hyun deciding what to do with money from his personal bank account. I researched the accounting rules, notices, family finances and debt chronology here: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-27176938https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-27169970
@Nan, I want to be very precise because you correctly called me out when I previously attributed other people’s claims to you. You did not say Kim Soo Hyun caused her DUI or directly caused her death. Your actual points were that he knew her while she was young and sent her a military letter, later dated her as an adult, publicly denied that relationship, that Gold Medalist should have protected her better as an artist, that she was made responsible for liabilities after the DUI, and that you believe the agency contributed to her financial collapse. Those are the arguments I am answering. The letter proves contact, not romance. His public denial of the adult relationship is something he admitted and can legitimately be criticized for. The financial claim is different: available documentation describes the liabilities as consequences of her DUI and contracts that Gold Medalist covered or advanced, not unrelated company debts transferred onto her. You can absolutely argue that the agency should have shown more compassion, but saying it caused her financial collapse requires accounting evidence because her documented financial difficulties also included her father’s bankruptcy, a failed family business, money she had lent within her family, loss of contracts and the collapse of her earning capacity. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/others/20250609/actress-kim-sae-ron-was-listed-as-creditor-in-fathers-bankruptcy-lost-over-180000
@fujoshisan, your own wording creates the contradiction. You said the real facts are unknown except to the people involved, but you also called him an “adult groomer” and “sexploiter” and predicted that he will eventually be convicted of molestation because you believe that is his “true nature.” If you believe the facts are unknown, then you cannot logically turn an imagined future sex crime into proof of his present character. You are allowed to dislike him or believe he behaved badly. You are not entitled to convert belief into an established criminal fact without evidence.
@miaxiaemia and @aeyu, your argument is primarily about women supporting an alleged abuser and the wider treatment of women in Korea. Misogyny and unequal treatment of women are real issues, but they do not answer the factual question of whether this particular accusation was proven. Supporting women does not require automatically declaring every accused man guilty. The purpose of taking allegations seriously is to investigate them seriously, not to decide in advance that an accusation must remain true even after evidence fails to establish it. That distinction protects genuine victims rather than weakening them.
@Akita, you said he should be in jail, that the photographs and letters are “facts,” and that money makes these things disappear. The photographs and letters may themselves exist, but your interpretation of what they prove is the disputed part. A real photograph can still be falsely dated or given a false context; a real letter can still be correspondence rather than evidence of an abusive relationship. And the bribery theory still requires evidence of bribery. Saying “money makes shit go away” after the investigative outcome is not proof that money made this case go away.
@mana and @JustWatchin, your comments were simply “disgusting piece of shit” and “DISGUSTINGG.” @chetelli said he now gives you the “ick,” @Bambi wanted him gone indefinitely, and @Mai said she would boycott his dramas. Those are personal reactions. I may disagree with them, but nobody is required to like Kim Soo Hyun, find him attractive, forgive his choices or watch his work. Personal dislike is not the issue here. The issue begins when dislike turns into factual allegations of child sexual abuse, grooming, responsibility for suicide or criminal corruption.
@anyy, you first wrote that you wanted him gone, which is an opinion, but later you stated that “this pedo literally was the actual reason” for Kim Sae Ron’s death. That is a factual causal accusation about a suicide, and I have seen no evidence establishing it. Kim Sae Ron left no publicly verified note saying Kim Soo Hyun caused her death, and police have separately treated the narrative that debt pressure from his side caused her death as one of the allegedly false claims disseminated by Kim Se-ui. If you have evidence establishing causation, present it. Otherwise, nobody should assign the motive for a dead person’s suicide because the date happens to support a dramatic interpretation.
@Daldajang, your position is different again. You objected to people saying Kim Soo Hyun had been “officially declared innocent” and argued that the Garo Sero case does not equal complete exoneration of every controversy surrounding him. On that narrow point, precision matters and I agree with part of it. The July 29 decision is a police non-referral for insufficient evidence on the Child Welfare Act allegations; it is not a criminal acquittal after trial. But that does not leave the underage allegation in the same position it occupied in March 2025 either. Police independently investigated it and did not find sufficient basis to recognize the offence. The Kim Se-ui trial concerns whether he spread false information or used manipulated material, not whether Kim Soo Hyun will later stand trial for the same child-abuse allegation. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
There is also a legal reason everyone should be more precise with language. Under South Korea’s Criminal Act, Article 307 covers public defamation by factual allegations and provides heavier penalties when false facts are publicly alleged; Article 311 separately covers public insult. Article 310 provides a public-interest justification for certain true factual statements, which again shows why the distinction between verified fact, opinion and false factual accusation matters. Whether Korean law would have jurisdiction over any particular foreign MDL user is a separate legal question, so I am not pretending every rude comment automatically becomes a Korean criminal case. But calling somebody a pedophile or stating that they sexually abused a child is not legally equivalent to saying “I don’t like him.” Korean Criminal Act, Articles 307, 310 and 311: https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/eng/engLsInfoR.do?lsiSeq=253323
The same standard applies to Kim Soo Hyun’s supporters. @etoks21, your sexual comments toward other users, repeated suicide jokes, “eat shit” comments and insults about people being “Knetz killers” are not helping. If our argument is that online humiliation can destroy people, we cannot then humiliate strangers because we think they chose the wrong side. I am interested in evidence, not replacing one form of cyberbullying with another.
That is also why Kim Sae Ron herself should be the lesson here. She drove drunk and absolutely had to accept responsibility for that, but public accountability turned into years of humiliation, attacks over her financial situation and hostility toward attempts to return to work. Her death should have taught people that online punishment can continue long after legitimate criticism has served its purpose. Lee Sun-kyun’s case should have taught the same lesson from the other direction: enormous public exposure during an investigation can destroy a person before the legal process has finished, and a former police officer was later punished for leaking investigative information from his case. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240323002200315https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20251217103800065
So this is where I stand after actually reading what each of you wrote. @chetelli, @Bambi, @mana and others are free to dislike him or boycott him. @Nan is free to judge his admitted denial of the adult relationship and argue Gold Medalist owed Kim Sae Ron more compassion. @Daldajang is right to insist that a police non-referral should not be mislabeled as a court acquittal. Those are positions we can debate honestly. But @Marckye N, @RicardoBarros, @Mia, @Rei, @min min, @qBlood, @marzzz, @k3tamin, @fujoshisan, @anyy and anyone else making factual accusations of grooming, pedophilia, an underage sexual relationship or responsibility for suicide need evidence proportionate to the accusation.
I have already posted my detailed timeline, financial investigation and later legal update. If something in them is wrong, show me exactly what is wrong and give me a reliable source. I will correct it, just as I corrected myself with @Nan when I attributed arguments to her that she had not made. What I will not accept is “I’m not reading all that” followed by another accusation. If you have enough time to publicly call someone a pedophile, groomer, predator or murderer, you have enough time to understand the evidence before doing it. Refusing to read the investigation while continuing to accuse someone is not advocacy for victims; it is choosing ignorance.
I love the Thai *Your Sky* because ThomasKong are ridiculously adorable, but watching *Hare Nochi Koi* is making me realise how differently casting can change the same characters. The Japanese version is actually much closer to how I imagined them while reading the novel. Vasayegh Hikaru especially surprised me. Mike was convincing as Oh, but Hikaru’s Oji feels genuinely unsettling—the smiles, the stare, that slightly threatening presence. It is almost bizarre remembering how cute and vulnerable Hikaru looked on *Produce 101 Japan*. And I feel the same about Aihara Isshin. I love Thomas, but his Muenfah always felt softer and more approachable to me, while Isshin has much more of that aloof, hard-to-approach “bad boy” presence I imagined from the book. I still love the Thai adaptation, but purely in terms of how I pictured these characters, Japan may have cast them closer to the novel.
At the time, my position was simple: I was not asking anyone to believe Kim Soo Hyun because they liked him. I was asking people to stop treating accusations as proven facts when the evidence did not establish them. Months later, we now have police investigations, forensic findings, referrals to prosecutors, an arrest, an indictment and a separate police decision concerning the accusations against Kim Soo Hyun himself. So this deserves an update. And before anyone says this information comes from KSH fans: I checked the important claims against Korean news reports independently. I am linking those sources below.
6 FEBRUARY 2026 — ANOTHER DEFAMATION CASE IS SENT TO PROSECUTORS
Lee Jung-sub, the former director and screenwriter connected to *Real*, was referred to prosecutors after being reported over statements concerning Kim Soo Hyun. According to SBS, police informed the complainant that the suspect's alleged offence was recognized sufficiently for the case to be forwarded. That is not a conviction, and I won't pretend it is. It means police considered there were sufficient grounds to send the matter to prosecutors. Source: https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1008434224
MAY 2026 — THE CASE CHANGES COMPLETELY
After approximately a year of investigation, police sought an arrest warrant for Garo Sero Research Institute/Hoverlab operator Kim Se-ui. According to Yonhap, police accused him of spreading false claims that: — Kim Soo Hyun dated Kim Sae Ron while she was a minor. — Pressure from Kim Soo Hyun's side to repay debt caused her death. — Kim Sae Ron said she first had sexual relations with Kim Soo Hyun while she was in middle school. That third accusation is particularly important. Police alleged that Kim Se-ui created doctored audio recordings using AI to support that claim. Police also reportedly concluded that he must have known the allegations were false. Source: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526004651315
26 MAY 2026 — KIM SE-UI IS ARRESTED
The Seoul Central District Court issued the arrest warrant. The reason given by the court was concern about "flight and destruction of evidence". Again, an arrest is not a conviction. But this was no longer Kim Soo Hyun's agency saying somebody had lied about him. Police had investigated for approximately a year and presented evidence to a court, and a judge found detention justified. Source: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526004651315
THE “EVIDENCE” ITSELF BECOMES PART OF THE INVESTIGATION
This is probably the biggest change since my original post. One of the principal reasons people called Kim Soo Hyun a groomer and child sexual abuser was the supposed evidence presented publicly. But investigators began questioning the evidence itself. According to reporting summarized by Yonhap, police concluded that the supposed Kim Sae Ron audio had been manipulated using AI. There were also allegations concerning manipulated KakaoTalk material. Reporting said a conversation originally showing the other participant as “Unknown” had allegedly been altered to identify that person as Kim Soo Hyun. Source: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526000400315 That matters enormously. - A screenshot is not proof simply because somebody posts it. - An audio file is not proof simply because somebody tells you whose voice it is. - Evidence requires authentication.
23 JUNE 2026 — KIM SE-UI IS INDICTED WHILE DETAINED
This is another important distinction. He wasn't merely accused or investigated anymore. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office indicted Kim Se-ui while he remained detained. According to Yonhap, prosecutors conducted supplementary investigation, including interviews and forensic analysis of recordings. Prosecutors said the investigation established that materials had been arbitrarily edited and distorted, or that false material had been relied upon without even basic fact-checking, resulting in false information concerning Kim Soo Hyun being spread and causing enormous harm. Source: https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260623158700004 He has not yet been convicted, so I will not call him guilty before his trial is completed. That is exactly the presumption I wanted people to give Kim Soo Hyun.
29 JULY 2026 — NOW INVESTIGATORS EXAMINE THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST KIM SOO HYUN
This part matters just as much. Kim Sae Ron's family had filed a criminal complaint alleging that Kim Soo Hyun had been involved with her while she was a minor and had violated the Child Welfare Act. Police investigated it. Seongdong Police Station then decided not to refer Kim Soo Hyun to prosecutors. According to the police official quoted by *The Korea Times/Hankook Ilbo*, there was no legal evidence supporting the child-abuse allegation. The submitted audio recording could not be accepted as evidence because it appeared to have been edited or manipulated. The case was closed for insufficient evidence. Source: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
Again, I am choosing my words deliberately. A police non-referral is not the same thing as an acquittal after a criminal trial. But neither can people honestly continue saying “he groomed a child” or “he had sex with her when she was 14” as though those were established facts when the police investigation found insufficient legal evidence and rejected the supposed recording as reliable evidence.
AND THE INVESTIGATION DIDN'T STOP WITH KIM SE-UI
Other people connected to the spreading of allegations have also come under investigation. Kim Sae Ron's former manager was accused of misconduct including embezzling hospital expenses. Those allegations were investigated and reportedly closed without referral because of insufficient evidence. Kwon Young-chan, who publicly repeated accusations involving Kim Soo Hyun and the former manager, has himself subsequently been referred to prosecutors in defamation-related proceedings. Most importantly, reporting indicates that Kim Sae Ron's family's lawyer, Bu Ji-seok, became a suspect during the investigation, despite Kim Soo Hyun's lawyer saying they had not specifically filed a complaint against him. That does not make him guilty. It does mean investigators themselves apparently found enough during their investigation to examine his possible involvement.
WHAT WE STILL DON'T KNOW
I am not going to replace one conspiracy theory with another. We still do not publicly know the complete chain of custody for every photograph, KakaoTalk conversation, recording and document. We still need to know exactly who supplied each item, who edited anything that was edited, who authenticated it before publication, and what each person knew when they distributed it. Most importantly, the legal position of Kim Sae Ron's family themselves remains unclear. Kim Soo Hyun filed criminal complaints against members of the bereaved family and Kim Se-ui in March 2025, together with a ₩12 billion civil damages claim. Source: https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/kim-soo-hyun-addresses-kim-sae-ron-relationship-as-it-happened/10350443
I have not found reliable reporting establishing a final indictment, non-referral or other final disposition concerning the family's own liability. Until that happens, I won't invent one.
BUT HERE IS WHERE I DRAW THE LINE
- You don't have to like Kim Soo Hyun. - You don't have to watch his dramas. - You can criticize how he handled his relationship. You can criticize Gold Medalist. You can question his decisions. You can even say you simply don't believe him. - But there is a difference between an opinion and accusing a real human being of committing sexual crimes against a child.
If you write: “Kim Soo Hyun is a pedophile.” “He had sex with her when she was 14.” “He groomed her as a child.” “He caused her suicide.” then you are no longer merely saying that you dislike an actor. You are asserting extremely serious allegations as facts. Where is your evidence? Not another TikTok. Not somebody else's tweet. Not a screenshot whose provenance you cannot establish. Not an audio recording investigators found unreliable. Actual evidence.
If you have reliable evidence contradicting these police and prosecutorial findings, bring it. I will read it. I have corrected myself several times while researching this case because finding the truth matters more to me than winning an argument. But if you cannot answer the evidence and continue knowingly repeating allegations that investigators have treated as false or unsupported, then don't pretend you are fighting bullying or defending a victim.
You are participating in the bullying yourself.
Kim Se-ui is now detained and indicted over alleged conduct involving the dissemination of false and manipulated information about another person. Anyone who knowingly continues spreading the same kinds of false factual allegations should not be surprised if the same defamation laws are eventually applied to them. I won't defend bullying because the target happens to be famous, wealthy, male or someone you personally dislike. The internet does not give anyone a moral exemption from evidence. So disagree with me. Bring another reliable source. Find something I missed. Prove my research wrong. I genuinely welcome that.
But if your entire argument is still “pedo,” “groomer,” “psychopath,” “scumbag” or another insult after everything investigators have now uncovered, there is nothing left to debate.
Accusations require evidence. If you cannot provide it, stop presenting them as facts.
If you are someone who doesn't really understand much about this case and would like to know the actual details…
I went through KSHTruth, but I also checked the important claims against Korean reporting because I don’t want to rely on a fan site alone. The site is useful as an archive, but the original sources are what matter. This is where the case actually stands:
• 25 Aug 2025 — Kim Sae Ron’s former manager: accusations that he embezzled her hospital expenses were investigated and closed without referral for insufficient evidence. He later pursued defamation action over those claims.
• 6 Feb 2026 — Lee Jung-sub, former director/writer of Real: police referred his case to prosecutors over alleged defamation of Kim Soo Hyun. Referral is not a conviction, but it means police found sufficient grounds for prosecutors to examine the case.
• 21 May 2026 — Attorney Bu Ji-seok, representing Kim Sae Ron’s family: investigators reportedly changed his status to suspect over possible involvement in supplying and spreading disputed material. Importantly, Kim Soo Hyun’s side says it had not filed a complaint against him personally; his suspect status emerged during the police investigation itself. https://www.mk.co.kr/en/hot-issues/12055019 https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202605211312007
• 26 May 2026 — Kim Se-ui/Garo Sero: Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant citing risk of flight and destruction of evidence. The case included allegations that he spread false claims that KSH dated KSR while she was a minor and that debt pressure caused her death. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260527002500315
So I agree that https://www.kshtruth.com/ is useful, but I would tell people: don’t trust it simply because it supports KSH. Click the original articles and verify them. That is actually much stronger, because several of the most important developments now come from police, prosecutors, courts, Yonhap, SBS and other established Korean outlets—not from fans.
And one major question is still unresolved publicly: what happens to Kim Sae Ron’s family themselves? Their lawyer became a suspect, Kwon was reportedly relying on material supplied by the family, and Kim Soo Hyun filed complaints involving family members, but I still cannot verify a final indictment or clearance of the family themselves. That is the part I’m watching next.
So your evidence is that she died on his birthday? That's not evidence of a crime. It's a tragic coincidence.If…
😂 No, I don’t work for him, Gold Medalist, his lawyers, or anyone remotely connected to them. If they want to start paying me for all these hours of research though, I won’t complain. There is actually a much simpler explanation for why I dig this much. My father was a police officer working on serious crimes, and he died in the line of duty. I never wanted to become a cop myself, but I definitely inherited the curiosity. When I was younger, I was basically the boy version of Veronica Mars 😂. Give me something that doesn’t make sense and I’ll keep pulling at the thread until I understand it.
And yes, your question took time because I genuinely didn’t know the answer. Instead of making something up, I checked Korean law, accounting rules, company statements and reporting from different sources. That’s why you got an essay when you asked one question 😂.
But I disagree with “if it was so innocent, this would have ended in a second.” Serious accusations don’t work that way. Making an accusation takes seconds; properly investigating one can take months. When you have allegations involving grooming, sexual abuse, disputed evidence, defamation and competing criminal complaints, police actually have to investigate before reaching conclusions. Do I think something was off? Absolutely. That’s actually why I became interested in the case. I just stopped assuming that the “something off” had to be Kim Soo Hyun. The more I checked the dates, their careers, locations, finances and the evidence behind the accusations, the more the simple narrative against him stopped fitting. And I’m not defending him because I need him to be innocent. I’m defending the conclusion the evidence currently leads me to. If tomorrow reliable evidence proves something I wrote is wrong, I’ll correct it. I’ve already corrected myself when research contradicted something I initially thought.
So no, no secret job 😂. You gave the boy version of Veronica Mars a mystery and unfortunately for both of us, I took it seriously.
So your evidence is that she died on his birthday? That's not evidence of a crime. It's a tragic coincidence.If…
@ShadowOzzy I know you hate long replies, but you asked very specific questions, so this one needs a proper answer. I spent time checking the Korean accounting rules, tax law, Gold Medalist’s statements and the financial timeline because I don’t want to give you a fan answer or repeat something that turns out to be false. So please actually read it, because researching all of this properly takes time.
First, the ₩700 million — roughly €430,000 / US$494,000 / AU$704,000 — was not simply Kim Soo Hyun’s personal money. Gold Medalist is a separate Korean corporation with its own management, accounts, legal obligations and financial records. Corporate money is not the same thing as money sitting in Kim Soo Hyun’s personal bank account, and he could not simply decide on his own, “forget about the ₩700 million.” https://www.goldmedalist.com/en/company After Kim Sae Ron’s 2022 DUI, Gold Medalist says it covered or advanced substantial costs connected to the accident and the resulting liabilities. The amount that remained on the company’s books was approximately ₩700 million. So this was never simply a story of Kim Soo Hyun personally lending his ex-girlfriend half a million dollars and later suddenly demanding it back. It was a corporate receivable that Gold Medalist had to account for. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/shows-dramas/20250319/kim-soo-hyuns-agency-denies-demanding-damages-from-kim-sae-ron . This is where Korean accounting and tax law matter. Under Article 19-2 of Korea’s Corporate Tax Act, irrecoverable claims can be recognized as bad-debt expenses when the legal requirements are satisfied, while Article 34 regulates allowances for bad debts. A company cannot simply make hundreds of millions of won disappear from its books because management feels sorry for someone. It has to document why the money left the company, why it remained outstanding and why it eventually became irrecoverable. https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do?hseq=54783&lang=ENG
There is also a tax reason why “he is rich, why didn’t they just forgive it?” is much more complicated than it sounds. Article 36 of Korea’s Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act deals with the economic benefit received when somebody is released from a financial obligation. Formally forgiving hundreds of millions of won can therefore create tax consequences as well. This is not the equivalent of one friend telling another, “don’t worry about paying me back.” A corporation has to document what it is doing and why. Korean authorities take large celebrity and corporate financial arrangements seriously; the recent Cha Eun Woo tax controversy is a completely different type of case, but it illustrates how closely the National Tax Service examines whether large amounts involving celebrities and companies have been properly classified and taxed. Korean Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act, Article 36: https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=67747&key=&type=new
Now comes the part I think is most important. Gold Medalist says that by December 31, 2023 it had already concluded that Kim Sae Ron was unable to repay the approximately ₩700 million and recorded the receivable as a bad debt. The agency said this treatment could be verified in its April 1, 2024 audit records. In other words, according to the company’s own accounting timeline, it had already accepted that the money was probably not coming back before the March 2024 controversy surrounding the photo she posted with Kim Soo Hyun. https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/kim-soo-hyuns-agency-denies-legal-papers-were-a-threat-but-offered-kim-sae-ron-time-to-pay-debt/11938027 That does not mean the legal debt automatically disappeared the moment it was written off in the accounts. Accounting recognition of a bad debt and legally extinguishing an obligation are not exactly the same thing. But it completely changes the meaning of the claim that Kim Soo Hyun “went berserk trying to reclaim the money.” If Gold Medalist had already recognized the amount as unlikely to be recovered, this was clearly more complicated than one rich man aggressively chasing his ex-girlfriend for cash.
The certified notices need that same context. The first notice was formal and understandably frightening. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But Gold Medalist says the second notice opened discussion about the method and timing of repayment instead of simply demanding immediate payment. The family and Gold Medalist have given different interpretations of those notices, and Korea JoongAng Daily reported both sides. https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/kim-soo-hyuns-agency-denies-legal-papers-were-a-threat-but-offered-kim-sae-ron-time-to-pay-debt/11938027 . So when you say “Kim Soo Hyun loaned her money, demanded it back and ghosted her,” you are merging a corporate accounting issue and a personal relationship into one story. The creditor was Gold Medalist. The receivable appeared in the company’s accounts. Lawyers and accountants were involved. Could Gold Medalist have communicated with her more gently? Maybe. Could Kim Soo Hyun personally have answered her even if lawyers were handling the matter? Maybe. Those are fair questions about human behaviour. They are very different from saying he personally loaned her the money, suddenly demanded it back because he was greedy and drove her towards suicide.
And there is another issue people almost completely ignore when they ask, “Kim Soo Hyun was rich, why didn’t he simply pay?” Kim Sae Ron was not an unknown actress who had never earned money. She had worked since childhood and had been one of Korea’s best-known young actresses. So if we genuinely want to understand why she eventually could not deal with a liability of this size, we also have to ask where her own money had gone before deciding that an ex-boyfriend should have rescued her. What we know publicly is significant. Her father filed for bankruptcy in December 2020 after his business collapsed, owing more than 20 creditors. Kim Sae Ron herself was listed as one of his creditors for approximately ₩250 million — roughly €153,000 / US$176,000 / AU$251,000. Reporting also says the family restaurant later failed and its security deposit was lost. During her 2023 DUI trial, her lawyers described her as the head of the household supporting relatives who were experiencing serious financial difficulties. Those problems existed independently of Kim Soo Hyun and long before the later YouTube scandal. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/others/20250609/actress-kim-sae-ron-was-listed-as-creditor-in-fathers-bankruptcy-lost-over-180000 . That raises questions I find much more relevant than “why didn’t her rich ex pay?” Why was a woman who had been earning money since childhood lending hundreds of millions of won into a family already experiencing serious business problems? Why was she described in court as financially supporting struggling relatives? Why did someone who had worked for so many years eventually need financial assistance from agencies and acquaintances? Those are documented questions.
And even if Kim Soo Hyun had still been her boyfriend, who realistically hands over that kind of money with no legal protection? We are not talking about a small personal loan. Kim Sae Ron’s total reported liabilities were around ₩1.2 billion — roughly €733,000 / US$847,000 / AU$1.21 million at today’s exchange rates. Of that, about ₩700 million remained connected to Gold Medalist after the DUI-related costs and repayments. Being wealthy does not mean you casually absorb someone else’s liabilities approaching a million US dollars, especially when that person is already financially supporting a family affected by bankruptcy and failed businesses. And at the time, nobody could know that the DUI would effectively destroy her ability to earn for such a long period. The accident was serious and she absolutely had to take responsibility for it, but Korean entertainment has seen celebrities survive major scandals and eventually return to work. It was reasonable to believe that Kim Sae Ron, a successful actress who had worked since childhood, would eventually resume her career and deal with her obligations over time. That is also why I think people oversimplify this when they say, “He was rich, so why didn’t he just pay?” The real question is why a woman who had been earning money since childhood ended up with reported liabilities of around ₩1.2 billion while also financially supporting relatives and having already lent approximately ₩250 million to her father. A boyfriend, ex-boyfriend or friend is not automatically responsible for absorbing another adult’s debts, their family’s financial problems and the consequences of an accident. That responsibility cannot simply be transferred to Kim Soo Hyun because he happened to have more money.
What turned her financial situation into something catastrophic was not only the original debt. Her earning capacity collapsed because the public backlash became relentless. She lost projects, attempts to return were attacked, and people who had supported her for years turned on her. That is something I think many of the people who claim to defend her today conveniently forget. She did not deserve the level of humiliation and online abuse she received after the DUI. The same internet culture now claiming that one man destroyed her was participating in destroying her career while she was still alive. That is why blaming Kim Soo Hyun because he did not personally absorb hundreds of millions of won makes no sense to me. Her financial problems involved family responsibilities, her father’s bankruptcy, a failed family business, the DUI, compensation, lost employment and corporate liabilities. Reducing all of that to “her rich ex-boyfriend abandoned her” requires ignoring most of the documented financial history. And this also brings me to her family after her death. I am not claiming that their financial motive has been judicially proven, because it has not. But I think some questions are completely legitimate. If they genuinely possessed reliable evidence that their daughter had been sexually abused as a child, why was that evidence first turned into a public YouTube campaign instead of being immediately given to police and prosecutors? If they genuinely believed this had happened, why did the strongest accusations emerge publicly after her death? Why did the criminal complaint follow later? Why were materials broadcast through Kim Se-ui before investigators had authenticated them? Those questions do not prove a motive by themselves, but they absolutely justify asking why the case was handled that way. If I believed somebody had sexually abused my child, my first concern would be the police, evidence preservation and prosecution — not creating a media spectacle through a monetized YouTube channel.
And one final correction because I want this answer to remain accurate even when it does not support my own theory: Kim Sae Ron’s debts did not automatically become her parents’ personal debts when she died. Korean inheritance law allows heirs to renounce an inheritance or accept it with liability limited to inherited property. So we would need to know what her heirs actually chose before claiming they simply inherited everything she owed.
That is really my point, @ShadowOzzy. You asked why a rich Kim Soo Hyun would supposedly “go berserk” over the money. Once you look at the company accounts, Korean tax rules, the bad-debt treatment, her father’s bankruptcy, her own ₩250 million exposure to the family, the failed business, the DUI and the destruction of her earning capacity, that simple story stops making sense. You don’t have to like Kim Soo Hyun after reading this. But if we are going to blame somebody for what happened to Kim Sae Ron, logic requires looking at the whole financial history instead of starting with the conclusion that her wealthy ex-boyfriend must somehow be responsible for everything.
I'm surprised no one is posting about the 12 year age difference between the ML. That sort of thing always freaks…
I don't really understand why people would be freaked out by a 12-year age difference between two adult characters. We see much larger gaps in real relationships all the time, gay and straight: Elton John and David Furnish, Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones... even Beyoncé and Jay-Z have roughly the same 12-year gap.
For me, age itself isn't the issue once both people are adults. I'd be much more interested in whether there's manipulation, dependency or an unhealthy power imbalance between the characters. A 12-year difference alone tells me almost nothing about whether a relationship works.
Maybe I'm also less sensitive to it because my own ex-boyfriend was 15 years younger than me, but that's exactly why I find the reaction to fictional adult couples a little strange. They're actors playing adults in a fake relationship. If the relationship is well written and believable, their birth years are probably the last thing I'm going to worry about.
episodes 1 & 2• Heartbroken by an oblivious junior• Except junior looks three years older than senior•…
Your summary of Best and Ton made me laugh because Ton is looking less “oblivious” by the minute. 😂 But it also makes their story more interesting to me psychologically. Best has already been hurt by having feelings for someone who apparently didn't understand what he was feeling. Now Ton comes back into his space, crawls over tables, flirts and suddenly seems very aware of him. Cute, yes, but that doesn't automatically erase what happened before.
Ton didn't necessarily do anything wrong if he genuinely didn't know Best loved him, but Best's heartbreak was still real. That's why I'm curious about how the series handles this. For Best, the question shouldn't simply be “Do I still like him?” He clearly does. It should be “Can I trust that he actually sees me differently this time?” Flirting can reopen feelings very quickly, especially feelings that never completely disappeared, but it doesn't prove that the person who hurt you unintentionally now understands what you need.
So I'm enjoying their chemistry much more than Dan and Pond's so far, but both couples strangely raise the same question for me: when someone has already broken your heart, intentionally or not, what has actually changed enough to make giving them another chance emotionally safe?
Dan and Pond are already frustrating me, but not because I think Pond is a horrible person. Psychologically, it is completely possible to love someone and still choose independence, career or the life you imagined for yourself. Sometimes people convince themselves that leaving is the rational choice and only understand the emotional cost once that new life becomes normal.
My problem is that when they separated, Dan was visibly conflicted while Pond seemed excited about his future by the sea, the sun, the cars... everything except finding a way for Dan to exist in that future with him. He didn't appear to fight for the relationship, suggest a compromise or even make Dan feel that losing him was the painful price of that choice. Then he returns a year later, becomes an intern in Dan's office and wants him back.
That can actually be a very interesting second-chance romance, but only if the series understands that Pond regretting his decision is not the same thing as Dan being ready to trust him again. Dan spent a year living with the consequence of a choice Pond made. Love may still be there, but trust can be damaged even when nobody cheated or deliberately tried to hurt anyone.
I don't need Pond to be punished, and I don't even think leaving automatically means he didn't love Dan. I just want the story to acknowledge that “I realised I still want you” is only the beginning. The interesting part should be whether Pond now understands what he lost, why Dan was hurt, and what has actually changed enough for Dan to risk giving him his heart again. With such short episodes, I'm not sure the series will give that process the time it deserves, but we'll see.
I have never heard my thoughts put into words like this. the first four episodes I was so hopeful and then it…
Exactly. Those first four episodes made me think the series understood where its strength was, which is probably why the disappointment afterwards felt so much worse. It wasn't that the story had nothing to offer—it simply kept leaving its most interesting possibilities behind. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt that shift so strongly.
I agree that nobody should harass him, but I don't understand the "jarring" argument. Not finding an actor…
You’ve made your position wonderfully clear: you don’t read arguments longer than a few paragraphs, you rank human beings by appearance, and when challenged you announce that you’ll follow an actor’s future work specifically to attack his looks.
That is an extraordinary amount of confidence for so little substance.
You keep talking about “objective beauty,” yet the only thing you’ve objectively demonstrated is that once appearance is removed, you have nothing to say about acting, talent, intelligence, chemistry, writing or performance. “Swan,” “frog,” “pretty,” “ugly”.
It is an impressively small vocabulary for someone presenting themselves as the intellectual authority in the room.
You say harassment is wrong while describing, in advance, how you intend to participate in it. The contradiction would probably embarrass you if self-awareness had managed to keep up.
And since my previous comment was apparently too demanding to finish, I’ll make this part easy: beauty is subjective, bullying is a choice, and wisdom appears to be chasing you with a considerable head start.
Lily Malice knows very well that posting these "controversy" articles are are a direct invitation to kids…
I actually agree that MDL should be primarily about dramas, and that is why I spend much more time writing full reviews than commenting on celebrity controversies. I watch a ridiculous number of Asian dramas and movies, including a lot of BL, so I thought it was only fair to share my opinions too: https://mydramalist.com/profile/L.J.H/reviews. But I try very hard not to write reviews that are simply “I loved it” or “I hated it,” because taste is personal. I explain what worked for me, what didn't, the writing, acting, directing, editing, production, pacing, characters, etc., and then people can make their own minds up. I don't expect somebody to dislike something just because I did.
That is also why I think these controversy articles can become dangerous when they are badly researched. People have a tendency to stop reviewing the work and start reviewing the person. Once they dislike an actor, suddenly everything that actor ever made becomes terrible; when they love the actor, sometimes terrible work magically becomes brilliant. I don't follow that majority mentality because an actor's private controversy does not retroactively rewrite a film or drama.
Kim Soo-hyun is a very good example of why I am so careful with this. The allegations against him spread incredibly fast in 2025 through Kim Se-ui's Garo Sero Research Institute/“HoverLab” channel and caused enormous damage before the evidence had been properly investigated. A year later, police concluded that the central allegation that he had dated Kim Sae-ron while she was a minor was false and that supposed evidence had been manipulated, including edited KakaoTalk material and an AI-manipulated recording. Kim Se-ui was arrested and sent to prosecutors, and on July 29 police also closed the Child Welfare Act case against Kim Soo-hyun without referral for insufficient evidence. https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/allegations-that-actor-kim-soo-hyun-dated-the-late-kim-sae-ron-as-a-minor-were-false-police-conclude/12617866https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260729127800004
And yet plenty of people still believe the original YouTube story because emotionally they already chose which version they wanted to believe. That is exactly why I don't want MDL simply copying the sensational framing of another outlet and calling that journalism. In 2026 the original interviews are searchable, official material is online, old statements can be checked, and different sources can be compared within minutes. If I can do that before writing a comment for free, I think somebody publishing under a news byline should be expected to do at least the same.
I don't necessarily think all celebrity news has to disappear from MDL. Sometimes what happens around a production genuinely matters. But there should be a difference between reporting and feeding gossip. Give me the original source, verify it, tell me what is allegation and what is established fact, include the context that contradicts the sensational version when it exists, and don't turn three anonymous comments into “netizens are furious.” Then let readers decide for themselves. That would actually add something useful to a site about dramas instead of turning the comment section into another place where the actor on trial changes every week.
Mu Hyul has a point. You started by saying you did not condone harassment, then moved from calling Jung Jun-won a “frog” to insulting other users as “incels” based on what you imagine they look like. At this point it is not a discussion about acting, casting or even beauty standards anymore. It is simply personal insults aimed at anyone who disagrees with you. Being anonymous does not make that clever, and disagreeing with your taste does not tell you anything about someone’s appearance or their life.
I agree that nobody should harass him, but I don't understand the "jarring" argument. Not finding an actor…
You keep saying that you “don’t condone harassment,” but then you call Jung Jun-won a “frog,” call him “ugly, short and unattractive,” describe Gong Hyo-jin as “average,” and even attack another user because they have Jang Hyuk as their profile picture. At that point you are no longer standing outside the harassment and commenting on it. You are participating in exactly the same appearance-based mockery you say you oppose.
And no, “the Korean audience thinks he is ugly” is not a fact. Some Korean netizens attacked his appearance, and Korean entertainment media reported those comments. That is not the same thing as surveying the Korean population. The same Korean coverage also reported people defending his looks and casting. Yun Jong-ho, the director who actually cast him in A Bona Fide Killer, publicly said, “From my perspective, Jung Jun-won is very cool and handsome,” and explained that he wanted a more grounded, realistic character rather than simply reproducing a webtoon pretty boy. https://v.daum.net/v/6GTkseMVl9 Korean media are now themselves pointing out that criticism of one variety appearance has gone beyond the original issue and expanded into attacks on his personality and appearance. https://www.hankookilbo.com/news/article/A2026080717000000280
The same thing happened with Resident Playbook. Some viewers initially complained that he and Go Youn-jung had different visual “drawing styles.” That did not establish that Koreans objectively considered him ugly. Go Youn-jung herself said she does not choose people based on looks and that humor and compatibility matter more to her, and the reaction toward their pairing changed considerably as viewers got to know the characters. https://www.sportschosun.com/entertainment/2025-05-19/202505190100111230016140
And this claim about “objective metrics of beauty” is being stretched far beyond what it means. You can objectively measure facial symmetry, proportions, distances between features, height, whatever you want. You cannot objectively prove that a human being is handsome or ugly. Those measurements may influence average preferences, but attraction is still subjective. Otherwise every person would rank every face in exactly the same order, which obviously does not happen.
Jung Jun-won is also 38 years old. He was born January 13, 1988. He is not a 20-year-old idol and he does not have to look like one. Not everybody is going to age like Lee Dong-wook, and nobody should have to. Actors are supposed to portray human beings of different ages, faces and body types, not remain permanently frozen at 25 so that two people on screen can satisfy somebody's imaginary “beauty score.”
The strangest part is saying that pairing him with Go Youn-jung is an “injustice” to her. Why? Beautiful women in real life do not exclusively date men whom strangers have ranked at exactly the same attractiveness level. That is not how attraction or relationships work. You are perfectly entitled not to find Jung Jun-won attractive and not to watch his dramas. Nobody is arguing with that. But “he isn't attractive to me” is a personal preference. “He is objectively ugly, Koreans agree with me, and pairing this frog with a swan is an injustice” is something completely different. And after writing that, claiming to oppose harassment becomes very difficult to take seriously.
Lily Malice knows very well that posting these "controversy" articles are are a direct invitation to kids…
I agree with you on the larger problem, and after checking how this particular article was made, I think Lily Alice deserves criticism for her own editorial choices too. She is credited as the writer, so putting “Source: Herald Economy, Maeil Business Newspaper” at the bottom does not remove her responsibility for what she publishes. What I found is that she largely took reporting already produced by Korean outlets, translated or adapted it into English, kept the sensational “attitude controversy” framing, and published it without doing the extra verification that would have immediately added important context. It took me very little research to find that Jung Jun-won had already spoken about his career struggles and his shyness long before this controversy, that Hangout with Yoo was not actually his first variety program, and that there was much more evidence available about what happened than what readers were given here.
That is what bothers me. In 2026, simply repackaging another outlet's article is not enough if you are going to present yourself as a news writer. The original interview is available. MBC material is available. Older interviews are searchable. His previous variety appearance is documented by MBC itself. Statements from people who were actually at the recording are available. A writer can cross-check all of that before publishing instead of reproducing the most dramatic framing because another newspaper used it first. That is basically what I do before commenting here, and I am not even being paid to be a journalist.
So yes, I think the criticism of Lily Alice is fair. I would only separate what we can prove from what we assume. I cannot prove that she personally wants Jung Jun-won to be bullied, or that she deliberately chose this story because negative reactions generate more clicks. But I can criticize the result: she repeatedly publishes controversy pieces built largely from other outlets' reporting, without enough independent investigation to challenge misleading framing or provide the context that could prevent readers from walking away with a distorted story. Whether that comes from sensationalism, speed, laziness, editorial pressure or something else is for her and MDL to answer. The effect is visible right here: an article about one awkward television appearance has turned into people debating his personality, his career and now even whether his face is ugly. At some point, a news writer has to ask whether they are informing people or simply feeding the machine.
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@Marckye N, you specifically called him a “groomer and a liar.” The “liar” part has a factual basis only in one limited sense: Kim Soo Hyun admitted that when the 2024 photograph appeared during Queen of Tears, he publicly denied a past adult relationship that had actually existed. You are free to judge him for that. But “groomer” is a completely different accusation. Police specifically investigated whether a relationship or abusive conduct existed while Kim Sae Ron was legally a child and found insufficient evidence to establish a Child Welfare Act offence. His admission about concealing an adult relationship does not become proof that he groomed her as a minor. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10824685
@RicardoBarros, @Mia, @Rei, @min min, @qBlood, @marzzz and @k3tamin, your comments go further because you describe him as a “paedophile,” “pedo,” someone who “dated a minor,” a “predator who sleeps with teenagers,” or treat the underage relationship as an established fact. That is precisely the allegation police investigated and did not substantiate. Under Korea’s Child Welfare Act, a child is a person under 18, and investigators examined the allegations across that relevant period. If you have authenticated evidence that establishes what police could not establish, then provide it. Otherwise, repeating the allegation is not evidence of the allegation. Korean Child Welfare Act: https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/eng/engLsInfoR.do?lsiSeq=252711 Police result: https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10824685
@Rei, you also said the investigations are “still ongoing,” so Kim Soo Hyun has not been officially cleared. This needs precision. Other cases are still ongoing, particularly the prosecutions and investigations concerning people accused of spreading the allegations, but the specific Child Welfare Act investigation against Kim Soo Hyun was concluded at police level with a non-referral decision for insufficient evidence. That does not mean a criminal court acquitted him after a trial, because there was no prosecution to try. It means police investigated that allegation and did not find sufficient grounds to send him to prosecutors. The ongoing trial of Kim Se-ui is about Kim Se-ui’s alleged conduct, not a future trial that will decide whether Kim Soo Hyun violated the Child Welfare Act. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
@Mai, your position is more detailed, so it deserves a more detailed answer. You pointed to photographs, a military letter, the fact that he later admitted an adult relationship, Gold Medalist’s handling of Kim Sae Ron after the DUI, his decision to distance himself, and the possibility that the Korean justice system was corrupted. A photograph proves two people were together when that photograph was taken; it does not establish when a romantic relationship began. A military letter proves correspondence; it does not establish a sexual relationship. His admission proves he denied a previous adult relationship publicly in 2024; it does not prove an underage one. Police examined the alleged minor relationship itself and did not substantiate it. I also reconstructed both careers, military service, agencies, filming periods, locations and public schedules precisely to test whether the alleged grooming timeline made sense. If you think my reconstruction is wrong, point to the date or source that is wrong and I will correct it: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-26929672
@Mai and @Flashtone, you both specifically raised corruption or money as an explanation for the investigative outcome. Corruption can exist in South Korea, as it can anywhere, but that does not prove corruption in this case. If you claim Kim Soo Hyun bought investigators, show evidence of that transaction: who was bribed, what was paid, who arranged it, and where is the supporting document, witness or financial trail? South Korea recently prosecuted its own former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who had vastly more political and institutional power than any actor; he was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment for insurrection. If the highest office in the country cannot simply make prosecution disappear, then saying an actor from a non-political, non-wealthy family secretly controls police, prosecutors and courts requires actual evidence, not suspicion. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-court-sentences-ex-president-yoon-life-prison-insurrection-2026-02-19/
@Flashtone, your other main argument is financial: you said Kim Sae Ron begged the agency for a chance to earn money and repay it, that they refused, and that Kim Soo Hyun was therefore a “demon.” That issue is much more complicated than “rich ex refuses to help.” Gold Medalist, not Kim Soo Hyun personally, was the creditor. The company says it advanced or covered very large liabilities resulting from the DUI and related contracts, leaving roughly ₩700 million on its books, and that by the end of 2023 it had already classified that amount as bad debt because it believed she could not repay it. Korean corporate and tax law requires losses and debt forgiveness of that scale to be documented; this was not simply Kim Soo Hyun deciding what to do with money from his personal bank account. I researched the accounting rules, notices, family finances and debt chronology here: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-27176938 https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-27169970
@Nan, I want to be very precise because you correctly called me out when I previously attributed other people’s claims to you. You did not say Kim Soo Hyun caused her DUI or directly caused her death. Your actual points were that he knew her while she was young and sent her a military letter, later dated her as an adult, publicly denied that relationship, that Gold Medalist should have protected her better as an artist, that she was made responsible for liabilities after the DUI, and that you believe the agency contributed to her financial collapse. Those are the arguments I am answering. The letter proves contact, not romance. His public denial of the adult relationship is something he admitted and can legitimately be criticized for. The financial claim is different: available documentation describes the liabilities as consequences of her DUI and contracts that Gold Medalist covered or advanced, not unrelated company debts transferred onto her. You can absolutely argue that the agency should have shown more compassion, but saying it caused her financial collapse requires accounting evidence because her documented financial difficulties also included her father’s bankruptcy, a failed family business, money she had lent within her family, loss of contracts and the collapse of her earning capacity. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/others/20250609/actress-kim-sae-ron-was-listed-as-creditor-in-fathers-bankruptcy-lost-over-180000
@fujoshisan, your own wording creates the contradiction. You said the real facts are unknown except to the people involved, but you also called him an “adult groomer” and “sexploiter” and predicted that he will eventually be convicted of molestation because you believe that is his “true nature.” If you believe the facts are unknown, then you cannot logically turn an imagined future sex crime into proof of his present character. You are allowed to dislike him or believe he behaved badly. You are not entitled to convert belief into an established criminal fact without evidence.
@miaxiaemia and @aeyu, your argument is primarily about women supporting an alleged abuser and the wider treatment of women in Korea. Misogyny and unequal treatment of women are real issues, but they do not answer the factual question of whether this particular accusation was proven. Supporting women does not require automatically declaring every accused man guilty. The purpose of taking allegations seriously is to investigate them seriously, not to decide in advance that an accusation must remain true even after evidence fails to establish it. That distinction protects genuine victims rather than weakening them.
@Akita, you said he should be in jail, that the photographs and letters are “facts,” and that money makes these things disappear. The photographs and letters may themselves exist, but your interpretation of what they prove is the disputed part. A real photograph can still be falsely dated or given a false context; a real letter can still be correspondence rather than evidence of an abusive relationship. And the bribery theory still requires evidence of bribery. Saying “money makes shit go away” after the investigative outcome is not proof that money made this case go away.
@mana and @JustWatchin, your comments were simply “disgusting piece of shit” and “DISGUSTINGG.” @chetelli said he now gives you the “ick,” @Bambi wanted him gone indefinitely, and @Mai said she would boycott his dramas. Those are personal reactions. I may disagree with them, but nobody is required to like Kim Soo Hyun, find him attractive, forgive his choices or watch his work. Personal dislike is not the issue here. The issue begins when dislike turns into factual allegations of child sexual abuse, grooming, responsibility for suicide or criminal corruption.
@anyy, you first wrote that you wanted him gone, which is an opinion, but later you stated that “this pedo literally was the actual reason” for Kim Sae Ron’s death. That is a factual causal accusation about a suicide, and I have seen no evidence establishing it. Kim Sae Ron left no publicly verified note saying Kim Soo Hyun caused her death, and police have separately treated the narrative that debt pressure from his side caused her death as one of the allegedly false claims disseminated by Kim Se-ui. If you have evidence establishing causation, present it. Otherwise, nobody should assign the motive for a dead person’s suicide because the date happens to support a dramatic interpretation.
@Daldajang, your position is different again. You objected to people saying Kim Soo Hyun had been “officially declared innocent” and argued that the Garo Sero case does not equal complete exoneration of every controversy surrounding him. On that narrow point, precision matters and I agree with part of it. The July 29 decision is a police non-referral for insufficient evidence on the Child Welfare Act allegations; it is not a criminal acquittal after trial. But that does not leave the underage allegation in the same position it occupied in March 2025 either. Police independently investigated it and did not find sufficient basis to recognize the offence. The Kim Se-ui trial concerns whether he spread false information or used manipulated material, not whether Kim Soo Hyun will later stand trial for the same child-abuse allegation. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
There is also a legal reason everyone should be more precise with language. Under South Korea’s Criminal Act, Article 307 covers public defamation by factual allegations and provides heavier penalties when false facts are publicly alleged; Article 311 separately covers public insult. Article 310 provides a public-interest justification for certain true factual statements, which again shows why the distinction between verified fact, opinion and false factual accusation matters. Whether Korean law would have jurisdiction over any particular foreign MDL user is a separate legal question, so I am not pretending every rude comment automatically becomes a Korean criminal case. But calling somebody a pedophile or stating that they sexually abused a child is not legally equivalent to saying “I don’t like him.” Korean Criminal Act, Articles 307, 310 and 311: https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/eng/engLsInfoR.do?lsiSeq=253323
The same standard applies to Kim Soo Hyun’s supporters. @etoks21, your sexual comments toward other users, repeated suicide jokes, “eat shit” comments and insults about people being “Knetz killers” are not helping. If our argument is that online humiliation can destroy people, we cannot then humiliate strangers because we think they chose the wrong side. I am interested in evidence, not replacing one form of cyberbullying with another.
That is also why Kim Sae Ron herself should be the lesson here. She drove drunk and absolutely had to accept responsibility for that, but public accountability turned into years of humiliation, attacks over her financial situation and hostility toward attempts to return to work. Her death should have taught people that online punishment can continue long after legitimate criticism has served its purpose. Lee Sun-kyun’s case should have taught the same lesson from the other direction: enormous public exposure during an investigation can destroy a person before the legal process has finished, and a former police officer was later punished for leaking investigative information from his case. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240323002200315 https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20251217103800065
So this is where I stand after actually reading what each of you wrote. @chetelli, @Bambi, @mana and others are free to dislike him or boycott him. @Nan is free to judge his admitted denial of the adult relationship and argue Gold Medalist owed Kim Sae Ron more compassion. @Daldajang is right to insist that a police non-referral should not be mislabeled as a court acquittal. Those are positions we can debate honestly. But @Marckye N, @RicardoBarros, @Mia, @Rei, @min min, @qBlood, @marzzz, @k3tamin, @fujoshisan, @anyy and anyone else making factual accusations of grooming, pedophilia, an underage sexual relationship or responsibility for suicide need evidence proportionate to the accusation.
I have already posted my detailed timeline, financial investigation and later legal update. If something in them is wrong, show me exactly what is wrong and give me a reliable source. I will correct it, just as I corrected myself with @Nan when I attributed arguments to her that she had not made. What I will not accept is “I’m not reading all that” followed by another accusation. If you have enough time to publicly call someone a pedophile, groomer, predator or murderer, you have enough time to understand the evidence before doing it. Refusing to read the investigation while continuing to accuse someone is not advocacy for victims; it is choosing ignorance.
Full chronology and schedule investigation: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-26929672
Financial/accounting investigation: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-27169970
Further financial/family analysis: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-27176938
A while ago, I wrote a long investigation into the Kim Soo Hyun/Kim Sae Ron case because too many things in the accusation simply did not fit the timeline or the evidence. My original post is here:
https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-26929672
At the time, my position was simple: I was not asking anyone to believe Kim Soo Hyun because they liked him. I was asking people to stop treating accusations as proven facts when the evidence did not establish them. Months later, we now have police investigations, forensic findings, referrals to prosecutors, an arrest, an indictment and a separate police decision concerning the accusations against Kim Soo Hyun himself. So this deserves an update. And before anyone says this information comes from KSH fans: I checked the important claims against Korean news reports independently. I am linking those sources below.
6 FEBRUARY 2026 — ANOTHER DEFAMATION CASE IS SENT TO PROSECUTORS
Lee Jung-sub, the former director and screenwriter connected to *Real*, was referred to prosecutors after being reported over statements concerning Kim Soo Hyun. According to SBS, police informed the complainant that the suspect's alleged offence was recognized sufficiently for the case to be forwarded. That is not a conviction, and I won't pretend it is. It means police considered there were sufficient grounds to send the matter to prosecutors.
Source:
https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1008434224
MAY 2026 — THE CASE CHANGES COMPLETELY
After approximately a year of investigation, police sought an arrest warrant for Garo Sero Research Institute/Hoverlab operator Kim Se-ui. According to Yonhap, police accused him of spreading false claims that:
— Kim Soo Hyun dated Kim Sae Ron while she was a minor.
— Pressure from Kim Soo Hyun's side to repay debt caused her death.
— Kim Sae Ron said she first had sexual relations with Kim Soo Hyun while she was in middle school.
That third accusation is particularly important. Police alleged that Kim Se-ui created doctored audio recordings using AI to support that claim. Police also reportedly concluded that he must have known the allegations were false.
Source:
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526004651315
26 MAY 2026 — KIM SE-UI IS ARRESTED
The Seoul Central District Court issued the arrest warrant. The reason given by the court was concern about "flight and destruction of evidence". Again, an arrest is not a conviction. But this was no longer Kim Soo Hyun's agency saying somebody had lied about him. Police had investigated for approximately a year and presented evidence to a court, and a judge found detention justified.
Source:
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526004651315
THE “EVIDENCE” ITSELF BECOMES PART OF THE INVESTIGATION
This is probably the biggest change since my original post. One of the principal reasons people called Kim Soo Hyun a groomer and child sexual abuser was the supposed evidence presented publicly. But investigators began questioning the evidence itself. According to reporting summarized by Yonhap, police concluded that the supposed Kim Sae Ron audio had been manipulated using AI. There were also allegations concerning manipulated KakaoTalk material. Reporting said a conversation originally showing the other participant as “Unknown” had allegedly been altered to identify that person as Kim Soo Hyun.
Source:
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260526000400315
That matters enormously.
- A screenshot is not proof simply because somebody posts it.
- An audio file is not proof simply because somebody tells you whose voice it is.
- Evidence requires authentication.
23 JUNE 2026 — KIM SE-UI IS INDICTED WHILE DETAINED
This is another important distinction. He wasn't merely accused or investigated anymore. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office indicted Kim Se-ui while he remained detained. According to Yonhap, prosecutors conducted supplementary investigation, including interviews and forensic analysis of recordings. Prosecutors said the investigation established that materials had been arbitrarily edited and distorted, or that false material had been relied upon without even basic fact-checking, resulting in false information concerning Kim Soo Hyun being spread and causing enormous harm.
Source:
https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260623158700004
He has not yet been convicted, so I will not call him guilty before his trial is completed. That is exactly the presumption I wanted people to give Kim Soo Hyun.
29 JULY 2026 — NOW INVESTIGATORS EXAMINE THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST KIM SOO HYUN
This part matters just as much. Kim Sae Ron's family had filed a criminal complaint alleging that Kim Soo Hyun had been involved with her while she was a minor and had violated the Child Welfare Act. Police investigated it. Seongdong Police Station then decided not to refer Kim Soo Hyun to prosecutors. According to the police official quoted by *The Korea Times/Hankook Ilbo*, there was no legal evidence supporting the child-abuse allegation. The submitted audio recording could not be accepted as evidence because it appeared to have been edited or manipulated.
The case was closed for insufficient evidence.
Source:
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
Again, I am choosing my words deliberately. A police non-referral is not the same thing as an acquittal after a criminal trial. But neither can people honestly continue saying “he groomed a child” or “he had sex with her when she was 14” as though those were established facts when the police investigation found insufficient legal evidence and rejected the supposed recording as reliable evidence.
AND THE INVESTIGATION DIDN'T STOP WITH KIM SE-UI
Other people connected to the spreading of allegations have also come under investigation. Kim Sae Ron's former manager was accused of misconduct including embezzling hospital expenses. Those allegations were investigated and reportedly closed without referral because of insufficient evidence. Kwon Young-chan, who publicly repeated accusations involving Kim Soo Hyun and the former manager, has himself subsequently been referred to prosecutors in defamation-related proceedings. Most importantly, reporting indicates that Kim Sae Ron's family's lawyer, Bu Ji-seok, became a suspect during the investigation, despite Kim Soo Hyun's lawyer saying they had not specifically filed a complaint against him. That does not make him guilty. It does mean investigators themselves apparently found enough during their investigation to examine his possible involvement.
WHAT WE STILL DON'T KNOW
I am not going to replace one conspiracy theory with another. We still do not publicly know the complete chain of custody for every photograph, KakaoTalk conversation, recording and document. We still need to know exactly who supplied each item, who edited anything that was edited, who authenticated it before publication, and what each person knew when they distributed it. Most importantly, the legal position of Kim Sae Ron's family themselves remains unclear. Kim Soo Hyun filed criminal complaints against members of the bereaved family and Kim Se-ui in March 2025, together with a ₩12 billion civil damages claim.
Source:
https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/kim-soo-hyun-addresses-kim-sae-ron-relationship-as-it-happened/10350443
I have not found reliable reporting establishing a final indictment, non-referral or other final disposition concerning the family's own liability. Until that happens, I won't invent one.
BUT HERE IS WHERE I DRAW THE LINE
- You don't have to like Kim Soo Hyun.
- You don't have to watch his dramas.
- You can criticize how he handled his relationship. You can criticize Gold Medalist. You can question his decisions. You can even say you simply don't believe him.
- But there is a difference between an opinion and accusing a real human being of committing sexual crimes against a child.
If you write:
“Kim Soo Hyun is a pedophile.”
“He had sex with her when she was 14.”
“He groomed her as a child.”
“He caused her suicide.”
then you are no longer merely saying that you dislike an actor. You are asserting extremely serious allegations as facts. Where is your evidence? Not another TikTok. Not somebody else's tweet. Not a screenshot whose provenance you cannot establish. Not an audio recording investigators found unreliable. Actual evidence.
If you have reliable evidence contradicting these police and prosecutorial findings, bring it. I will read it. I have corrected myself several times while researching this case because finding the truth matters more to me than winning an argument. But if you cannot answer the evidence and continue knowingly repeating allegations that investigators have treated as false or unsupported, then don't pretend you are fighting bullying or defending a victim.
You are participating in the bullying yourself.
Kim Se-ui is now detained and indicted over alleged conduct involving the dissemination of false and manipulated information about another person. Anyone who knowingly continues spreading the same kinds of false factual allegations should not be surprised if the same defamation laws are eventually applied to them. I won't defend bullying because the target happens to be famous, wealthy, male or someone you personally dislike. The internet does not give anyone a moral exemption from evidence. So disagree with me. Bring another reliable source. Find something I missed. Prove my research wrong. I genuinely welcome that.
But if your entire argument is still “pedo,” “groomer,” “psychopath,” “scumbag” or another insult after everything investigators have now uncovered, there is nothing left to debate.
Accusations require evidence. If you cannot provide it, stop presenting them as facts.
• 25 Aug 2025 — Kim Sae Ron’s former manager: accusations that he embezzled her hospital expenses were investigated and closed without referral for insufficient evidence. He later pursued defamation action over those claims.
• 6 Feb 2026 — Lee Jung-sub, former director/writer of Real: police referred his case to prosecutors over alleged defamation of Kim Soo Hyun. Referral is not a conviction, but it means police found sufficient grounds for prosecutors to examine the case.
• 21 May 2026 — Attorney Bu Ji-seok, representing Kim Sae Ron’s family: investigators reportedly changed his status to suspect over possible involvement in supplying and spreading disputed material. Importantly, Kim Soo Hyun’s side says it had not filed a complaint against him personally; his suspect status emerged during the police investigation itself.
https://www.mk.co.kr/en/hot-issues/12055019
https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202605211312007
• 26 May 2026 — Kim Se-ui/Garo Sero: Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant citing risk of flight and destruction of evidence. The case included allegations that he spread false claims that KSH dated KSR while she was a minor and that debt pressure caused her death.
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260527002500315
• 23 Jun 2026 — Kim Se-ui indicted while detained: prosecutors charged him over alleged defamation and other offenses. SBS reports prosecutors’ supplementary investigation found material had been edited/distorted or false material had been used without basic verification.
https://news.sbs.co.kr/english/article.do?news_id=N1008624086
https://www.asiae.co.kr/en/article/2026062318003441623
• 29 Jul 2026 — case against Kim Soo Hyun: Seongdong Police decided not to refer him to prosecutors over the Child Welfare Act allegations. Police said there was no legal evidence supporting the child-abuse claim, and the submitted audio could not be accepted as reliable evidence because it appeared edited/manipulated.
https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10824685
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/20260729/police-clear-kim-soo-hyun-of-child-welfare-law-violations-over-underage-dating-claims
• 10 Aug 2026 — Kwon Young-chan: police referred him to prosecutors over alleged defamation of KSH. Reporting says investigators concluded he broadcast claims as if he had verified them while relying heavily on material supplied by KSR’s family.
https://www.mk.co.kr/en/society/12123139
https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2026/08/10/7SAW4AZNM5BKHPZDXIC33G33VY/
So I agree that https://www.kshtruth.com/ is useful, but I would tell people: don’t trust it simply because it supports KSH. Click the original articles and verify them. That is actually much stronger, because several of the most important developments now come from police, prosecutors, courts, Yonhap, SBS and other established Korean outlets—not from fans.
And one major question is still unresolved publicly: what happens to Kim Sae Ron’s family themselves? Their lawyer became a suspect, Kwon was reportedly relying on material supplied by the family, and Kim Soo Hyun filed complaints involving family members, but I still cannot verify a final indictment or clearance of the family themselves. That is the part I’m watching next.
And yes, your question took time because I genuinely didn’t know the answer. Instead of making something up, I checked Korean law, accounting rules, company statements and reporting from different sources. That’s why you got an essay when you asked one question 😂.
But I disagree with “if it was so innocent, this would have ended in a second.” Serious accusations don’t work that way. Making an accusation takes seconds; properly investigating one can take months. When you have allegations involving grooming, sexual abuse, disputed evidence, defamation and competing criminal complaints, police actually have to investigate before reaching conclusions. Do I think something was off? Absolutely. That’s actually why I became interested in the case. I just stopped assuming that the “something off” had to be Kim Soo Hyun. The more I checked the dates, their careers, locations, finances and the evidence behind the accusations, the more the simple narrative against him stopped fitting. And I’m not defending him because I need him to be innocent. I’m defending the conclusion the evidence currently leads me to. If tomorrow reliable evidence proves something I wrote is wrong, I’ll correct it. I’ve already corrected myself when research contradicted something I initially thought.
So no, no secret job 😂. You gave the boy version of Veronica Mars a mystery and unfortunately for both of us, I took it seriously.
First, the ₩700 million — roughly €430,000 / US$494,000 / AU$704,000 — was not simply Kim Soo Hyun’s personal money. Gold Medalist is a separate Korean corporation with its own management, accounts, legal obligations and financial records. Corporate money is not the same thing as money sitting in Kim Soo Hyun’s personal bank account, and he could not simply decide on his own, “forget about the ₩700 million.” https://www.goldmedalist.com/en/company
After Kim Sae Ron’s 2022 DUI, Gold Medalist says it covered or advanced substantial costs connected to the accident and the resulting liabilities. The amount that remained on the company’s books was approximately ₩700 million. So this was never simply a story of Kim Soo Hyun personally lending his ex-girlfriend half a million dollars and later suddenly demanding it back. It was a corporate receivable that Gold Medalist had to account for. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/shows-dramas/20250319/kim-soo-hyuns-agency-denies-demanding-damages-from-kim-sae-ron . This is where Korean accounting and tax law matter. Under Article 19-2 of Korea’s Corporate Tax Act, irrecoverable claims can be recognized as bad-debt expenses when the legal requirements are satisfied, while Article 34 regulates allowances for bad debts. A company cannot simply make hundreds of millions of won disappear from its books because management feels sorry for someone. It has to document why the money left the company, why it remained outstanding and why it eventually became irrecoverable. https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do?hseq=54783&lang=ENG
There is also a tax reason why “he is rich, why didn’t they just forgive it?” is much more complicated than it sounds. Article 36 of Korea’s Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act deals with the economic benefit received when somebody is released from a financial obligation. Formally forgiving hundreds of millions of won can therefore create tax consequences as well. This is not the equivalent of one friend telling another, “don’t worry about paying me back.” A corporation has to document what it is doing and why. Korean authorities take large celebrity and corporate financial arrangements seriously; the recent Cha Eun Woo tax controversy is a completely different type of case, but it illustrates how closely the National Tax Service examines whether large amounts involving celebrities and companies have been properly classified and taxed. Korean Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act, Article 36: https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=67747&key=&type=new
Now comes the part I think is most important. Gold Medalist says that by December 31, 2023 it had already concluded that Kim Sae Ron was unable to repay the approximately ₩700 million and recorded the receivable as a bad debt. The agency said this treatment could be verified in its April 1, 2024 audit records. In other words, according to the company’s own accounting timeline, it had already accepted that the money was probably not coming back before the March 2024 controversy surrounding the photo she posted with Kim Soo Hyun. https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/kim-soo-hyuns-agency-denies-legal-papers-were-a-threat-but-offered-kim-sae-ron-time-to-pay-debt/11938027 That does not mean the legal debt automatically disappeared the moment it was written off in the accounts. Accounting recognition of a bad debt and legally extinguishing an obligation are not exactly the same thing. But it completely changes the meaning of the claim that Kim Soo Hyun “went berserk trying to reclaim the money.” If Gold Medalist had already recognized the amount as unlikely to be recovered, this was clearly more complicated than one rich man aggressively chasing his ex-girlfriend for cash.
The certified notices need that same context. The first notice was formal and understandably frightening. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But Gold Medalist says the second notice opened discussion about the method and timing of repayment instead of simply demanding immediate payment. The family and Gold Medalist have given different interpretations of those notices, and Korea JoongAng Daily reported both sides. https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/kim-soo-hyuns-agency-denies-legal-papers-were-a-threat-but-offered-kim-sae-ron-time-to-pay-debt/11938027 . So when you say “Kim Soo Hyun loaned her money, demanded it back and ghosted her,” you are merging a corporate accounting issue and a personal relationship into one story. The creditor was Gold Medalist. The receivable appeared in the company’s accounts. Lawyers and accountants were involved. Could Gold Medalist have communicated with her more gently? Maybe. Could Kim Soo Hyun personally have answered her even if lawyers were handling the matter? Maybe. Those are fair questions about human behaviour. They are very different from saying he personally loaned her the money, suddenly demanded it back because he was greedy and drove her towards suicide.
And there is another issue people almost completely ignore when they ask, “Kim Soo Hyun was rich, why didn’t he simply pay?” Kim Sae Ron was not an unknown actress who had never earned money. She had worked since childhood and had been one of Korea’s best-known young actresses. So if we genuinely want to understand why she eventually could not deal with a liability of this size, we also have to ask where her own money had gone before deciding that an ex-boyfriend should have rescued her. What we know publicly is significant. Her father filed for bankruptcy in December 2020 after his business collapsed, owing more than 20 creditors. Kim Sae Ron herself was listed as one of his creditors for approximately ₩250 million — roughly €153,000 / US$176,000 / AU$251,000. Reporting also says the family restaurant later failed and its security deposit was lost. During her 2023 DUI trial, her lawyers described her as the head of the household supporting relatives who were experiencing serious financial difficulties. Those problems existed independently of Kim Soo Hyun and long before the later YouTube scandal. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/entertainment/others/20250609/actress-kim-sae-ron-was-listed-as-creditor-in-fathers-bankruptcy-lost-over-180000 . That raises questions I find much more relevant than “why didn’t her rich ex pay?” Why was a woman who had been earning money since childhood lending hundreds of millions of won into a family already experiencing serious business problems? Why was she described in court as financially supporting struggling relatives? Why did someone who had worked for so many years eventually need financial assistance from agencies and acquaintances? Those are documented questions.
There is also a wider economic context. Korea still has the largest gender wage gap in the OECD; OECD data for 2023 put the median gender wage gap at roughly 29%. That does not tell us exactly how much Kim Sae Ron earned compared with Kim Soo Hyun because celebrity contracts are private, but it is another reason why simply comparing their wealth and saying “he had more money, therefore he should pay” is poor reasoning. Structural inequality in Korean earnings is not Kim Soo Hyun’s personal responsibility either. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/inclusive-and-sustainable-well-being-in-korea_a8940343-en/full-report/ensuring-inclusive-and-sustainable-well-being-for-korean-men-and-women-throughout-their-lives-outcomes-by-gender-age-and-education_23e274c3.html
And even if Kim Soo Hyun had still been her boyfriend, who realistically hands over that kind of money with no legal protection? We are not talking about a small personal loan. Kim Sae Ron’s total reported liabilities were around ₩1.2 billion — roughly €733,000 / US$847,000 / AU$1.21 million at today’s exchange rates. Of that, about ₩700 million remained connected to Gold Medalist after the DUI-related costs and repayments. Being wealthy does not mean you casually absorb someone else’s liabilities approaching a million US dollars, especially when that person is already financially supporting a family affected by bankruptcy and failed businesses. And at the time, nobody could know that the DUI would effectively destroy her ability to earn for such a long period. The accident was serious and she absolutely had to take responsibility for it, but Korean entertainment has seen celebrities survive major scandals and eventually return to work. It was reasonable to believe that Kim Sae Ron, a successful actress who had worked since childhood, would eventually resume her career and deal with her obligations over time. That is also why I think people oversimplify this when they say, “He was rich, so why didn’t he just pay?” The real question is why a woman who had been earning money since childhood ended up with reported liabilities of around ₩1.2 billion while also financially supporting relatives and having already lent approximately ₩250 million to her father. A boyfriend, ex-boyfriend or friend is not automatically responsible for absorbing another adult’s debts, their family’s financial problems and the consequences of an accident. That responsibility cannot simply be transferred to Kim Soo Hyun because he happened to have more money.
What turned her financial situation into something catastrophic was not only the original debt. Her earning capacity collapsed because the public backlash became relentless. She lost projects, attempts to return were attacked, and people who had supported her for years turned on her. That is something I think many of the people who claim to defend her today conveniently forget. She did not deserve the level of humiliation and online abuse she received after the DUI. The same internet culture now claiming that one man destroyed her was participating in destroying her career while she was still alive. That is why blaming Kim Soo Hyun because he did not personally absorb hundreds of millions of won makes no sense to me. Her financial problems involved family responsibilities, her father’s bankruptcy, a failed family business, the DUI, compensation, lost employment and corporate liabilities. Reducing all of that to “her rich ex-boyfriend abandoned her” requires ignoring most of the documented financial history. And this also brings me to her family after her death. I am not claiming that their financial motive has been judicially proven, because it has not. But I think some questions are completely legitimate. If they genuinely possessed reliable evidence that their daughter had been sexually abused as a child, why was that evidence first turned into a public YouTube campaign instead of being immediately given to police and prosecutors? If they genuinely believed this had happened, why did the strongest accusations emerge publicly after her death? Why did the criminal complaint follow later? Why were materials broadcast through Kim Se-ui before investigators had authenticated them? Those questions do not prove a motive by themselves, but they absolutely justify asking why the case was handled that way. If I believed somebody had sexually abused my child, my first concern would be the police, evidence preservation and prosecution — not creating a media spectacle through a monetized YouTube channel.
And one final correction because I want this answer to remain accurate even when it does not support my own theory: Kim Sae Ron’s debts did not automatically become her parents’ personal debts when she died. Korean inheritance law allows heirs to renounce an inheritance or accept it with liability limited to inherited property. So we would need to know what her heirs actually chose before claiming they simply inherited everything she owed.
That is really my point, @ShadowOzzy. You asked why a rich Kim Soo Hyun would supposedly “go berserk” over the money. Once you look at the company accounts, Korean tax rules, the bad-debt treatment, her father’s bankruptcy, her own ₩250 million exposure to the family, the failed business, the DUI and the destruction of her earning capacity, that simple story stops making sense. You don’t have to like Kim Soo Hyun after reading this. But if we are going to blame somebody for what happened to Kim Sae Ron, logic requires looking at the whole financial history instead of starting with the conclusion that her wealthy ex-boyfriend must somehow be responsible for everything.
For me, age itself isn't the issue once both people are adults. I'd be much more interested in whether there's manipulation, dependency or an unhealthy power imbalance between the characters. A 12-year difference alone tells me almost nothing about whether a relationship works.
Maybe I'm also less sensitive to it because my own ex-boyfriend was 15 years younger than me, but that's exactly why I find the reaction to fictional adult couples a little strange. They're actors playing adults in a fake relationship. If the relationship is well written and believable, their birth years are probably the last thing I'm going to worry about.
Ton didn't necessarily do anything wrong if he genuinely didn't know Best loved him, but Best's heartbreak was still real. That's why I'm curious about how the series handles this. For Best, the question shouldn't simply be “Do I still like him?” He clearly does. It should be “Can I trust that he actually sees me differently this time?” Flirting can reopen feelings very quickly, especially feelings that never completely disappeared, but it doesn't prove that the person who hurt you unintentionally now understands what you need.
So I'm enjoying their chemistry much more than Dan and Pond's so far, but both couples strangely raise the same question for me: when someone has already broken your heart, intentionally or not, what has actually changed enough to make giving them another chance emotionally safe?
My problem is that when they separated, Dan was visibly conflicted while Pond seemed excited about his future by the sea, the sun, the cars... everything except finding a way for Dan to exist in that future with him. He didn't appear to fight for the relationship, suggest a compromise or even make Dan feel that losing him was the painful price of that choice. Then he returns a year later, becomes an intern in Dan's office and wants him back.
That can actually be a very interesting second-chance romance, but only if the series understands that Pond regretting his decision is not the same thing as Dan being ready to trust him again. Dan spent a year living with the consequence of a choice Pond made. Love may still be there, but trust can be damaged even when nobody cheated or deliberately tried to hurt anyone.
I don't need Pond to be punished, and I don't even think leaving automatically means he didn't love Dan. I just want the story to acknowledge that “I realised I still want you” is only the beginning. The interesting part should be whether Pond now understands what he lost, why Dan was hurt, and what has actually changed enough for Dan to risk giving him his heart again. With such short episodes, I'm not sure the series will give that process the time it deserves, but we'll see.
That is an extraordinary amount of confidence for so little substance.
You keep talking about “objective beauty,” yet the only thing you’ve objectively demonstrated is that once appearance is removed, you have nothing to say about acting, talent, intelligence, chemistry, writing or performance. “Swan,” “frog,” “pretty,” “ugly”.
It is an impressively small vocabulary for someone presenting themselves as the intellectual authority in the room.
You say harassment is wrong while describing, in advance, how you intend to participate in it. The contradiction would probably embarrass you if self-awareness had managed to keep up.
And since my previous comment was apparently too demanding to finish, I’ll make this part easy: beauty is subjective, bullying is a choice, and wisdom appears to be chasing you with a considerable head start.
That is also why I think these controversy articles can become dangerous when they are badly researched. People have a tendency to stop reviewing the work and start reviewing the person. Once they dislike an actor, suddenly everything that actor ever made becomes terrible; when they love the actor, sometimes terrible work magically becomes brilliant. I don't follow that majority mentality because an actor's private controversy does not retroactively rewrite a film or drama.
Kim Soo-hyun is a very good example of why I am so careful with this. The allegations against him spread incredibly fast in 2025 through Kim Se-ui's Garo Sero Research Institute/“HoverLab” channel and caused enormous damage before the evidence had been properly investigated. A year later, police concluded that the central allegation that he had dated Kim Sae-ron while she was a minor was false and that supposed evidence had been manipulated, including edited KakaoTalk material and an AI-manipulated recording. Kim Se-ui was arrested and sent to prosecutors, and on July 29 police also closed the Child Welfare Act case against Kim Soo-hyun without referral for insufficient evidence. https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/allegations-that-actor-kim-soo-hyun-dated-the-late-kim-sae-ron-as-a-minor-were-false-police-conclude/12617866 https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260729127800004
And yet plenty of people still believe the original YouTube story because emotionally they already chose which version they wanted to believe. That is exactly why I don't want MDL simply copying the sensational framing of another outlet and calling that journalism. In 2026 the original interviews are searchable, official material is online, old statements can be checked, and different sources can be compared within minutes. If I can do that before writing a comment for free, I think somebody publishing under a news byline should be expected to do at least the same.
I don't necessarily think all celebrity news has to disappear from MDL. Sometimes what happens around a production genuinely matters. But there should be a difference between reporting and feeding gossip. Give me the original source, verify it, tell me what is allegation and what is established fact, include the context that contradicts the sensational version when it exists, and don't turn three anonymous comments into “netizens are furious.” Then let readers decide for themselves. That would actually add something useful to a site about dramas instead of turning the comment section into another place where the actor on trial changes every week.
And no, “the Korean audience thinks he is ugly” is not a fact. Some Korean netizens attacked his appearance, and Korean entertainment media reported those comments. That is not the same thing as surveying the Korean population. The same Korean coverage also reported people defending his looks and casting. Yun Jong-ho, the director who actually cast him in A Bona Fide Killer, publicly said, “From my perspective, Jung Jun-won is very cool and handsome,” and explained that he wanted a more grounded, realistic character rather than simply reproducing a webtoon pretty boy. https://v.daum.net/v/6GTkseMVl9 Korean media are now themselves pointing out that criticism of one variety appearance has gone beyond the original issue and expanded into attacks on his personality and appearance. https://www.hankookilbo.com/news/article/A2026080717000000280
The same thing happened with Resident Playbook. Some viewers initially complained that he and Go Youn-jung had different visual “drawing styles.” That did not establish that Koreans objectively considered him ugly. Go Youn-jung herself said she does not choose people based on looks and that humor and compatibility matter more to her, and the reaction toward their pairing changed considerably as viewers got to know the characters. https://www.sportschosun.com/entertainment/2025-05-19/202505190100111230016140
And this claim about “objective metrics of beauty” is being stretched far beyond what it means. You can objectively measure facial symmetry, proportions, distances between features, height, whatever you want. You cannot objectively prove that a human being is handsome or ugly. Those measurements may influence average preferences, but attraction is still subjective. Otherwise every person would rank every face in exactly the same order, which obviously does not happen.
Jung Jun-won is also 38 years old. He was born January 13, 1988. He is not a 20-year-old idol and he does not have to look like one. Not everybody is going to age like Lee Dong-wook, and nobody should have to. Actors are supposed to portray human beings of different ages, faces and body types, not remain permanently frozen at 25 so that two people on screen can satisfy somebody's imaginary “beauty score.”
The strangest part is saying that pairing him with Go Youn-jung is an “injustice” to her. Why? Beautiful women in real life do not exclusively date men whom strangers have ranked at exactly the same attractiveness level. That is not how attraction or relationships work. You are perfectly entitled not to find Jung Jun-won attractive and not to watch his dramas. Nobody is arguing with that. But “he isn't attractive to me” is a personal preference. “He is objectively ugly, Koreans agree with me, and pairing this frog with a swan is an injustice” is something completely different. And after writing that, claiming to oppose harassment becomes very difficult to take seriously.
That is what bothers me. In 2026, simply repackaging another outlet's article is not enough if you are going to present yourself as a news writer. The original interview is available. MBC material is available. Older interviews are searchable. His previous variety appearance is documented by MBC itself. Statements from people who were actually at the recording are available. A writer can cross-check all of that before publishing instead of reproducing the most dramatic framing because another newspaper used it first. That is basically what I do before commenting here, and I am not even being paid to be a journalist.
So yes, I think the criticism of Lily Alice is fair. I would only separate what we can prove from what we assume. I cannot prove that she personally wants Jung Jun-won to be bullied, or that she deliberately chose this story because negative reactions generate more clicks. But I can criticize the result: she repeatedly publishes controversy pieces built largely from other outlets' reporting, without enough independent investigation to challenge misleading framing or provide the context that could prevent readers from walking away with a distorted story. Whether that comes from sensationalism, speed, laziness, editorial pressure or something else is for her and MDL to answer. The effect is visible right here: an article about one awkward television appearance has turned into people debating his personality, his career and now even whether his face is ugly. At some point, a news writer has to ask whether they are informing people or simply feeding the machine.