Falhon Cyril

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.

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.

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://kisskh.at/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/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.

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.

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.

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.

https://news.mydramalist.com/article/jung-jun-won-opens-up-about-career-struggles-amid-attitude-controversy#comment-27088900

https://news.mydramalist.com/article/jung-jun-won-opens-up-about-career-struggles-amid-attitude-controversy#comment-27088900

Follow-up: Why Are We Suddenly Talking About His Face?

I honestly did not expect Jung Jun-won’s appearance to become such a big subject in the comments under this article, because that was not what the article was about. Lily Alice was talking about his behavior on Hangout with Yoo, his nervousness, and his career struggles. My comment was correcting the timeline and adding context. Neither of us was discussing whether the man was handsome. Yet somehow the conversation moved from “Was he too passive on a variety show?” to “Well, people think he is ugly.” And I have to wonder why. Do we really need to shake the same bag of shit until we manage to create another controversy on top of the first one?

To be fair, the appearance discussion did not start here. There were already comments when Resident Playbook aired because Jung Jun-won was paired romantically with Go Youn-jung. Some Korean viewers said their “drawing styles” did not match, basically questioning whether somebody who looks like Go Youn-jung would realistically fall for his character. Jung Jun-won himself later admitted that he had expected those reactions and that they still hurt when he actually read them. But this part of the story is often conveniently forgotten: as the drama continued, the reaction changed. Viewers became attached to Gu Do-won, the couple became popular, and Korean coverage itself noted that the initial concerns were overturned as people fell for the character. So even the first so-called “appearance controversy” did not end with Korea collectively deciding that Jung Jun-won was ugly. https://www.starnewskorea.com/broadcast-drama/2025/05/20/2025051914562288896

Then A Bona Fide Killer created another argument, but again, the original discussion was more specific than “he is ugly.” Kwon Tae-sung is described in the webtoon as an exceptionally handsome man, and his looks are actually part of the character because Yu Bo-na is physically attracted to him. Some readers therefore thought Jung Jun-won did not match the image they had of the character. I have no problem with that opinion. If you read a webtoon for years and imagine a character one way, you can think an actor is miscast. But “he doesn't look like the man I imagined” and “this actor is ugly” are not the same sentence. Even the Korean article reporting the controversy included completely opposite reactions from viewers saying they found him handsome, that his softer appearance actually suited the character, and that his acting was more important anyway. https://sports.khan.co.kr/article/202607091103003

MBC’s own description of Kwon Tae-sung even calls the character tall and good-looking, while the production still chose Jung Jun-won for the role. So clearly the people actually making the drama did not share this idea that casting him as an attractive husband was somehow absurd. https://enews.imbc.com/News/RetrieveNewsInfo/508375

What I find more interesting is why all of this suddenly gets dragged back into a completely unrelated controversy. If somebody thought he did badly on Hangout with Yoo, then talk about that. If somebody thinks he was miscast in A Bona Fide Killer, talk about the casting. Why does his face suddenly become additional evidence against him? Once people dislike somebody, there seems to be this strange need to collect every possible negative thing that has ever been said about them and pile it all together. A nervous appearance becomes a “bad attitude,” then somebody remembers an old casting discussion, and suddenly we are debating whether his face deserves to be on television.

And since his face has now somehow become part of the subject, I am also going to say something about the photograph chosen for this article. I am not accusing Lily Alice of deliberately choosing an unflattering picture, because I have absolutely no way of knowing her intention and I am not going to invent one. But pictures matter too. The portrait used is a very plain, tightly framed photograph with almost no styling and a neutral expression. There are countless recent photographs of Jung Jun-won where he looks considerably better, including professional editorials and his own social media. Maybe MDL had licensing reasons for using that specific photograph; publications cannot simply grab whatever Instagram picture they want. But when half the discussion underneath somehow becomes about his appearance, it is difficult not to notice that the image introducing readers to the article is hardly the most flattering representation available.

And no, I personally do not understand calling this man ugly. You do not have to find him attractive. Attraction is subjective and everybody has a type. But there is a huge difference between “he doesn't do anything for me” and behaving as though “Jung Jun-won is ugly” is some objective fact established by Korean society.

I have actually been to Korea, and one thing travelling teaches you very quickly is that television is not real life. If most of the Koreans you see are K-pop idols, actors, models and people in advertisements, your idea of what an ordinary Korean person looks like becomes completely distorted. Television selects unusually photogenic people, then adds professional hair, makeup, styling, lighting, lenses, editing and sometimes cosmetic procedures on top of that. When you actually walk around Korea, you see normal human beings. Of course you do. They are not all walking around Gangnam looking like Cha Eun-woo or Go Youn-jung.

I had my own version of that culture shock when I first went to the United States. I knew obesity was more common there than in Europe, but television had absolutely not prepared me for how many very overweight people I would actually encounter in everyday life. It was simply another reminder that the population you see through entertainment is not a representative sample of the people living in a country. Korea is no different. K-dramas are not a census.

Jung Jun-won actually has something that I personally find much more interesting than the manufactured “perfect visual” look. He looks natural. He can look like somebody you might realistically meet, while still being a very attractive man. Allure Korea literally built a whole June 2025 editorial around him called “ORDINARY MAN,” photographing him in McQueen, Maison Margiela, Sacai, Moschino and other fashion pieces. That is hardly an industry treating somebody as visually unacceptable. https://www.allurekorea.com/2025/06/24/ordinary-man-%EC%A0%95%EC%A4%80%EC%9B%90/

There is an even better example because it is not just a fashion magazine choosing him for photographs. In August 2025, SSCL, an official Porsche dealer in Korea, launched its new “SSCL Friends” ambassador program and selected Jung Jun-won as its very first ambassador. SSCL specifically said that his “intellectual and refined image” matched the premium lifestyle the brand wanted to represent. Again, being chosen by Porsche does not scientifically prove that somebody is handsome, because there is no scientific measurement for beauty. But it does make the idea that the Korean entertainment and advertising industries somehow regard him as an ugly man rather difficult to take seriously. https://m.etnews.com/20250820000102

What bothers me more is that Jung Jun-won is exactly the kind of person this sort of attack can hurt. We already know that appearance comments affected him during Resident Playbook. He has never presented himself as some arrogant man convinced that he is gorgeous. Quite the opposite. In interviews, he tends to describe himself as ordinary, shy and lucky to have finally received these opportunities after years of struggling. That does not make him responsible for people attacking him, and I would not say that all of this would disappear if he were simply “stronger.” The people doing it are responsible for what they write. But when somebody has already admitted that a particular insecurity hurts him, repeatedly aiming at exactly that insecurity becomes particularly nasty.

And this is where I think jealousy sometimes enters the conversation. When there is nothing meaningful left to criticize about somebody’s work, appearance is the easiest weapon because there is no argument to win. You can always say someone is ugly, too old, too fat, too thin, too short, has the wrong nose, wrong eyes, wrong skin, whatever. There is no evidence required. It is playground bullying dressed up as an opinion.

There are actors far less conventionally attractive than Jung Jun-won who have had successful careers without anybody creating an “ugly controversy” around them. That alone should tell us how manufactured these things can be. Jung Jun-won happened to become the romantic partner of one of Korea’s most famous beauties, then got cast as a webtoon character explicitly described as extremely handsome, and then had an unrelated variety-show controversy just as his career was exploding. Those three completely separate things are now being mashed together until people talk as if “Jung Jun-won is ugly” were an established fact everybody in Korea agrees on.

It isn't. Some people do not find him attractive. Some webtoon readers wanted somebody else as Kwon Tae-sung. Some viewers initially thought he and Go Youn-jung were visually mismatched. Other people thought he was handsome, loved him with Go Youn-jung, bought out his fan meetings, watched his dramas, and apparently Porsche thought his image was refined enough to represent their brand. Those are the actual facts.

Nobody has to be attracted to Jung Jun-won. But if an article is about a man becoming so nervous on a variety show that he reportedly threw up after filming, and our response somehow becomes “also, his face is ugly,” maybe the problem we should be examining is no longer Jung Jun-won.

Exactly. That is the part I find disturbing too. We are talking about a few awkward minutes from one recording, yet people immediately started making conclusions about his entire personality, work ethic and even whether he deserved to be an actor. Being a celebrity does not mean every uncomfortable moment has to become evidence of some moral failure. We can dislike a performance, a variety appearance or even someone's public personality without turning it into a campaign against the person. And in this case, once people who were actually there explained how nervous he was, that should at least have been enough for everyone to reconsider some of the harsher assumptions.

I wanted to add the full timeline here because the article is mostly accurate about what happened after Hangout with Yoo, but there are two important things that need correcting or clarifying. First, the way the article connects Jung Jun-won talking about almost giving up acting with the current “attitude controversy” is misleading. The Ha Ji-young video was uploaded on August 5, after the August 1 broadcast, but I cannot find a reliable source giving the actual recording date, so I am not going to pretend we know whether it was filmed before or after the controversy. What we can prove, however, is that these were absolutely not new comments suddenly made to gain sympathy after being criticized. Jung Jun-won had already been talking publicly about exactly the same career struggles more than a year earlier.

In a May 26, 2025 interview with Maeil Business Newspaper, after Resident Playbook, Jung Jun-won described the drama as something almost miraculous after ten years of struggling as an actor. He talked about the uncertainty of a profession where there is no fixed path and where an actor ultimately has to be selected by somebody else. He also said that he did not know how long his new popularity would last and that what he really wanted was simply to remain a useful actor who could continue working. This was published more than fourteen months before the Hangout with Yoo controversy, so his August 2026 comments about luck, being chosen and questioning whether he could continue acting are completely consistent with things he had already been saying publicly. Source: https://www.mk.co.kr/news/entertain/11326084

He was even more explicit a month later. On June 26, 2025, during his Allure Korea interview, he said that Resident Playbook had “pulled me back up when I was at the edge of a cliff.” Then, on June 29, 2025, while appearing on Uhm Jung-hwa’s YouTube channel, he explained that he had desperately wanted more people to see his acting but could not simply create opportunities for himself because actors have to be chosen. He said the number of productions had fallen as the industry became more difficult, that his stress had reached its limit around the tenth year of his career, and that before Resident Playbook he felt as though he had nowhere else to go and was standing at the edge of a cliff. Again, all of this was said in June 2025, not in response to anything that happened in August 2026. Sources: https://enews.imbc.com/News/RetrieveNewsInfo/466479 and https://www.xportsnews.com/article/2020617

There is also a lot of discussion saying that an actor with eleven years of experience cannot suddenly use “being shy” as an explanation. The problem is that he did not suddenly start saying this either. On May 19, 2025, Jung Jun-won personally wrote in his fan café that although he had joined it some time earlier, he was “very shy” and had only then gathered enough courage to write to the fans. That was around fifteen months before this controversy. It was reported by several Korean outlets at the time. So people are free to dislike how he behaved on Hangout with Yoo, but the claim that shyness or nervousness was invented afterwards as damage control is contradicted by his own public comments from 2025. Source: https://isplus.com/article/view/isp202505190365

There is actually another factual mistake in the MDL article. It says that his August 1 appearance on Hangout with Yoo was his “first variety-show appearance.” It was not. Jung Jun-won had already been one of the four regular cast members of MBC’s Vacation by Part-Time Job (알바로 바캉스), alongside Lee Soo-ji, Kang You-seok and Kim Ah-young. The program aired for four episodes from November 19 to December 10, 2025. This is not something coming from a fan page or a database: MBC’s own official program page confirms the broadcast dates and cast. iMBC also explicitly described the program at the time as Jung Jun-won’s first variety challenge. Sources: https://program.imbc.com/Concept/1006848100000100000 and https://enews.imbc.com/News/RetrieveNewsInfo/484567

That earlier variety appearance is particularly relevant because we can actually compare his behavior instead of guessing about his personality from one difficult recording. On Vacation by Part-Time Job, he spent several days in Tanzania with the same small group, cooking, working, travelling and interacting with local people. MBC later reported that despite it being his first regular variety show, he showed natural reactions, improvised comedy and looked after the other cast members, including carrying Kim Ah-young after she injured her foot. At the end of the program Jung Jun-won himself said that he had been very nervous because it was his first variety show but had been able to enjoy it thanks to the other members. In other words, there is already documented evidence from before this controversy that he becomes nervous in unscripted entertainment, but can become much more relaxed when he has time to adapt to the people and environment around him. Source: https://enews.imbc.com/News/RetrieveNewsInfo/486947

This also puts HaHa and Gong Hyo-jin’s defense into better context. The article correctly reports that HaHa, who was actually there during the recording, described Jung Jun-won as lovable, cute and funny on set and asked viewers to remember that he is an actor rather than an experienced variety entertainer. Gong Hyo-jin, who was also there, went even further and revealed that he actually vomited after the recording because he had been so nervous. Those people did not watch an edited clip online and diagnose his personality from it. They were physically present during the filming. People can still think his performance on that episode was awkward or frustrating; that is a perfectly legitimate opinion. What the available evidence does not establish is that he was arrogant, disrespectful, lazy or deliberately “insincere.”

There is another piece of context worth mentioning because his career has changed very quickly. Jung Jun-won spent roughly a decade mostly in supporting roles before Resident Playbook suddenly made him widely recognizable in 2025. His first Seoul fan meeting in July 2025 sold out, and his profile rose sharply afterwards. Then, on July 20, 2026, only twelve days before this Hangout with Yoo episode aired, Company On officially announced that it had signed him to an exclusive contract and said it would fully support his future activities. Company On is the management company founded by Lee Je-hoon and also represents actors including Lee Dong-hwi and Kim Sung-kyu. So this controversy happened right in the middle of a very recent transition from long-time supporting actor to leading actor and much greater public exposure, not after eleven years of living as an experienced television celebrity. Source: https://companyon.co.kr/bbs/?so_table=news and https://www.newspim.com/news/view/20260720000760

So I think the factual distinction is important here. Jung Jun-won did receive criticism following Hangout with Yoo, and nobody has to enjoy his variety-show personality. But his comments about almost giving up acting were not a new explanation for this controversy; the same story was publicly documented throughout 2025. His description of himself as very shy also predates the controversy by well over a year. And Hangout with Yoo was not actually his first variety program, as this article states. The evidence we have from people who were at the recording, from his own statements long before the backlash, and even from his previous MBC variety program points much more strongly toward someone who was extremely nervous during a particular recording than toward the much more serious character judgments that have since been attached to a few awkward television clips.

Every time one allegation falls apart, another one appears. Now you're saying Kim Soo Hyun made Kim Sae Ron drink and drive. Where is the evidence for that? The DUI was investigated in 2022, and no such allegation was made then. It only appeared years later, after the controversy had already started.

The same applies to Gold Medalist. Kim Soo Hyun admitted one thing: that he denied their adult relationship to protect Queen of Tears, his colleagues and his career. He did not admit grooming, underage dating, making her drink, causing the DUI, threatening her personally, or causing her death. Those are completely separate claims that still require evidence.

You also say she "helped establish Gold Medalist." She was one of the first artists signed after its creation, but being an early artist is not the same as founding or building the company. If you believe she had a legal ownership interest or was promised compensation beyond her contract, where is the evidence?

I've already spent weeks reconstructing the entire chronology of this case—both careers, filming schedules, military service, filming locations, agency changes, Gold Medalist's creation, Kim Sae Ron's family finances, the DUI timeline and the later debt dispute. The more I researched, the less the grooming narrative fit the documented timeline. Rather than repeating everything here, you can read it: https://news.mydramalist.com/article/kim-soo-hyun-officially-resumes-activities-a-year-after-late-kim-sae-ron-controversy#comment-26929672

If you find factual errors in that reconstruction, point them out. But adding new allegations every time the previous ones are challenged isn't evidence. It's moving the goalposts.

Fair enough, and I understand your point now. The article placed Kyungsoo at the centre of an agency-wide statement, so it encouraged readers to believe that he personally initiated the campaign. In that sense, his name and image were used as the public face of a much broader story.

He did reshare the statement, so it may still have personal relevance to him, but the article should have clearly explained that Blitzway’s legal action concerns all its artists. I appreciate you acknowledging that your original reaction was based on a misleading presentation.

You are right about one point: Kyungsoo did share the notice on his Instagram Story. I had not seen that information, so I will correct my wording. I should have said that no specific incident involving him was officially identified—not that nothing related to him could possibly have happened.

But you are wrong about what the repost proves. It shows that the notice mattered to him and may concern harassment he has experienced. It does not magically change the agency’s statement from “our artists” into “Doh Kyungsoo only.” Blitzway named nobody, described no specific case and issued the notice for its entire roster. The fact that other artists did not repost it does not remove them from the statement.

So the accurate conclusion is this: Kyungsoo’s repost makes it reasonable to believe the issue is personally relevant to him, but saying that the agency officially announced legal action specifically for him is still an assumption, not a confirmed fact. I am happy to correct myself when new evidence appears. That is the difference between fact-checking and simply writing “lol” after a conclusion that the evidence does not fully prove.

Thank you, I really appreciate that. I understand why you think I should stop replying, but I cannot stay silent when I see bullying, even when I am not the target.

I defend Kim Soo-hyun in exactly the same way, not because I blindly take someone’s side, but because I care about facts. I will always put truth above fandom, rumours or popularity. I do not choose a camp; I check what is true, correct what is false and speak up when someone is being treated unfairly.

Bullies only win when everyone decides it is easier to look away. I may stop when the discussion becomes completely pointless, but I will never accept lies or cruelty just because the target is famous.

You say, “Let the lawyers handle it.” That is exactly what Blitzway is doing. They collected evidence, hired lawyers and asked the courts to decide. So we agree there. 🙂

But you are still calling it Kyungsoo’s “bruised feelings” when he did not make this statement. It was a general notice protecting every Blitzway artist. The article put his name in the headline for clicks, and you created an imaginary crying Kyungsoo from that misleading headline.

Satire is humour. Slander is spreading damaging falsehoods. They are not the same thing. Freedom of speech protects criticism, but it does not mean freedom from consequences when you falsely accuse, sexually harass or invade someone’s privacy. “I should be allowed to lie because he is famous” is not a human-rights argument. It is entitlement wearing glasses. 🤓

And “grin and bear it” is always very convenient advice when someone else is being targeted. Your solution asks nothing from the harassers and demands silence from their victims. That is not courage. It is simply making life easier for bullies.

So yes: let the lawyers handle it. They are. The only person publicly whining about Kyungsoo’s imaginary feelings is still you. 🙂

Then I misunderstood what you meant, so I apologize. I read “it seems targeted” more literally than you intended and focused too much on correcting that point, even though you had already acknowledged that the controversies came from completely different sources. I understand what you mean now: not that anyone is actually coordinating anything against him, but that the ridiculous succession of unrelated controversies creates that feeling, especially when you already feel sympathy for the person being hit by all of them. “Empathetic hilariousness” actually describes it quite well: it is absurd enough to laugh at, while still feeling genuinely sorry for him.

Since you specifically demanded Korean tax law, let’s use the actual Korean statutes rather than whatever version appears when you type “FACTS” in capital letters. Article 55(1) of South Korea’s Framework Act on National Taxes says that a person whose rights or interests are infringed by an unlawful or unreasonable tax disposition may request its cancellation, modification or another necessary disposition through the statutory appeal system. Article 68 gives the taxpayer 90 days to file a Tax Tribunal petition. That is exactly what Cha Eun-woo did. He did not “reopen a can of worms,” sue the NTS or ask fans to decide his case. He used the legal remedy created by Korean law specifically for taxpayers who dispute an NTS assessment. https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=286425

Article 57 of the same Act says that filing an objection, review request or Tax Tribunal petition does not normally suspend enforcement of the tax disposition. In very simple terms: appealing does not automatically freeze the bill. That is why paying approximately ₩13 billion and then challenging the assessment are perfectly compatible actions. He has already paid. Nobody is suggesting that poor Koreans should pay instead, nobody is fundraising for him, and nobody is claiming that wealth exempts him from taxation. You invented that argument because answering the real one would require admitting that Korean law allows a taxpayer to pay an assessment and still appeal it. https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=286425 and https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260802017000005

Now let’s deal with your sudden claim that you “have not argued about his innocence or guilt.” You previously wrote that he was “caught lying about tax shelters,” was “trying to evade paying tax,” and had established “dummy companies and structures to evade tax.” Those are not neutral summaries of an unfinished assessment. They are direct claims that he intentionally committed tax evasion. You cannot repeatedly announce the conclusion, then hide behind “IF he avoided tax” after someone asks you to prove it. Your disclaimer arrived several comments after your verdict.

The National Tax Service reportedly concluded that the disputed company lacked sufficient substance and reassessed income to Cha Eun-woo personally. That is the NTS position being challenged. An administrative assessment is legally significant, but it is not magically immune from review, which is why Articles 55 and 68 exist. The Tax Tribunal may uphold the assessment, reduce it or cancel it. Until that happens, “the NTS reached this conclusion” is a fact; “he was caught lying and deliberately created companies to evade tax” is your own conclusion dressed up as press reporting.

You also keep saying that “the court” will decide, while confidently accusing everyone else of knowing nothing about Korean law. There is no court deciding this at present. The confirmed proceeding is before the Tax Tribunal, an administrative adjudicative body. Yonhap reported that he submitted the petition in July and that Fantagio described it as a request for a legal determination under the procedure established by law. A court could become involved later through administrative litigation, but that is not the current stage. Even the official Tax Tribunal website explains how individuals and companies submit these petitions and supporting evidence. https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260802017000005 and https://www.tt.go.kr/mUser/pleading/judgeReq.do

And since you repeatedly use the words “tax evasion” as though an additional assessment automatically proves a crime, Article 3 of Korea’s Punishment of Tax Offenses Act would be useful reading. Criminal tax evasion requires evasion through “fraud or other unlawful acts.” Paragraph 6 defines those as active conduct making tax assessment or collection impossible or significantly difficult, such as false books, fabricated documents, destruction of records, concealment or manipulation of income and transactions. You have provided no criminal judgment establishing those elements against him. A disputed reassessment is not, by itself, a conviction under Article 3. https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsSideInfoP.do?docCls=jo&joBrNo=00&joNo=0003&lsiSeq=224875&urlMode=lsScJoRltInfoR

So stop shouting “IT’S NOT FOR YOU TO DECIDE” immediately after deciding for yourself that he lied, created dummy companies and intentionally evaded tax. I have never declared him legally innocent. I have said that the assessment is being challenged, the appeal is lawful, the tax has already been paid and your allegations of proven intentional evasion go beyond the publicly established facts. That is not parasocial defence. It is basic legal accuracy. Calling everyone a fan does not repair your contradictions, and capital letters do not turn your opinion into Korean law.

You are right about the main point: there is currently no reason to believe Lee Yi-kyung was personally targeted, and several entertainers with one-person companies have come under scrutiny. I also agree that describing every additional tax assessment as a huge “scandal” before the actual findings are public has become ridiculous.

However, the explanation about the government changing the tax law, giving celebrities a final date to sort out their taxes and then launching a crackdown is mixing two separate issues. The December 31, 2025 deadline was a Ministry of Culture registration grace period for entertainment agencies that had failed to register under the Popular Culture and Arts Industry Development Act. It was not a tax deadline and had nothing to do with celebrities being given one last chance to correct their tax returns.

The tax cases concern a different question: whether income earned through a celebrity’s personal activities genuinely belonged to their company, and whether the expenses claimed by that company qualified as corporate expenses. Those rules were not suddenly created specifically for entertainers. What has changed is the level of attention the tax authorities are giving these one-person corporations.

Cha Eun-woo, Kim Seon-ho, Lee Hanee and Lee Yi-kyung should not be treated as one identical case either. Their companies, transactions, assessed amounts, explanations and stages of review are different. In Lee Yi-kyung’s case, we only know that an audit produced an additional assessment, that his agency denied intentional concealment or fraudulent evasion, and that it said the amount would be paid. The amount and detailed findings remain undisclosed, and no criminal charge or court ruling has been reported.

So yes, the wider scrutiny probably explains the timing better than a theory that Lee was personally targeted. However, saying all of these stories resulted from one new tax law and one tax deadline simplifies the situation too much. It is also exactly why the media can place several very different cases under the same dramatic “tax scandal” label and allow readers to assume they are all guilty of the same thing.

I understand why it feels targeted when several controversies arrive one after another, especially when the previous one already created so much noise around him. However, there is currently no evidence that this tax audit was connected to that controversy, or that anyone deliberately moved on to another accusation because the first one failed. The tax issue came from the National Tax Service and appears to be part of wider scrutiny of celebrities using one-person corporations, so it is probably a coincidence rather than a coordinated attack. What I do agree with is that the accumulation itself can seriously damage someone’s image, because many people only remember the headlines and never return to check whether the original accusations were proven, corrected or exaggerated. In this case, Lee Yi-kyung received an additional tax assessment, but there has been no reported criminal charge or court finding of intentional tax evasion. So feeling sorry for him is understandable, but I would be careful about calling it targeted without evidence.