South Korean actor Kim Soo-hyun held tearful press conference to address recent allegations involving late actress Kim Sae-ron
On March 31, South Korean actor Kim Soo-hyun (37) held a press conference to address the recent allegations swarming his world involving the late actress Kim Sae-ron (24). According to Soompi, Soo-hyun apologised and denied every allegation, including evidence presented by Kim Sae-ron’s family at their press conference. Her family claimed that their relationship occurred five years ago for approximately one year. Soo-hyun’s statement is below, as a courtesy of Soompi.
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“Hello, this is Kim Soo-hyun.
First, I apologise.
It seems that so many people are suffering because of me, and it breaks my heart that the deceased cannot rest in peace.
I consider myself a coward. I always seemed preoccupied with protecting what I had. I couldnât even trust the kindness shown to me, and I was always afraid of losing something, of being harmed, so I was busy running away and denying things. Thatâs why it took me so long to stand here. Iâve been thinking, what if I had just told everything from the beginning? If I had, wouldnât the fans who loved me, the company staff who worked tirelessly to make even this press conference happen, wouldnât they all have suffered so much less?
Every time my private life with the deceased was exposed, I kept thinking, âLetâs just tell everything tomorrow. Letâs personally speak up and end this hellish situation.â But every time, I hesitated. What impact would my decision have on those around me? What if the decision makes everything go wrong for myself and everyone else?
It was the same when the deceased posted a photo of us together during the airing of âQueen of Tears.â Five years agoâand four years before âQueen of Tearsâ airedâthe deceased and I dated for about a year. But at that time, I denied the dating rumors. I think itâs natural to criticize me for that choice. I understand if you canât believe what Iâm saying now about what happened between the deceased and me. But since this is the only chance I have to speak like this here, I would be so grateful if you would just listen to my story once.
I became an actor and received an overwhelming amount of love. Originally, I wasnât someone who had much, but I became someone with so much to protect. Even when âQueen of Tearsâ was airing, there were so many things I had to protect as the lead actor. At that time, if I admitted to a relationship with someone I dated years ago, what would happen? What would happen to the actors I was working with, all the staff who were up all night on set, the production company that was putting everything on the line for this project, and our company staff?
Whenever the choices of âhuman Kim Soo Hyunâ and âstar Kim Soo Hyunâ diverged, I think I always made the choice of âstar Kim Soo Hyun.â So, I was actually afraid every day. I was afraid of what would happen if everything I chose to protect because I was âstar Kim Soo Hyunâ came back to me as poison. I was afraid of everything. But even if I could go back to when âQueen of Tearsâ was airing, I would make that choice again.
No matter how much I think about it, I donât think I can make that decision as I please just to make myself comfortable. I thought that was the responsibility that someone who chose the life of Kim Soo Hyun has to bear. I will accept any criticism if you call that choice cowardly or selfish. And I apologize to everyone who has cared for me.
Even at this moment, I have a lot of worries. And I am anxious. What kind of consequences will my words have this time? But because Iâm that kind of person, I thought I had to speak up in the end. There were also people who gave me this advice: âLetâs resolve this smoothly. To manage the risk, you should at least first show that youâre accepting things to a certain extent. Then youâll fade from peopleâs interest, and you can prepare for a comeback later.â If I had listened to those words, maybe my private life with the deceased would not have been exposed to this extent.
I wouldnât have had to receive threats every day about what photos they would upload tomorrow, what they would expose. And I wouldnât have been humiliated by having photos of my private life leaked. But I couldnât do that. I couldnât accept being threatened and forced to admit that lies were the truth.
Iâll talk about the part youâre most curious about. I did not date the deceased when she was a minor. And it is also not true that the deceased made a tragic choice because of me turning away or because my agency pressured her about her debt. Aside from the fact that we were both actors, we were both just ordinary lovers like everyone else. We met with good feelings for each other, and as time passed, we broke up. After that, we rarely contacted each other. Like most couples, we were cautious to contact each other separately after breaking up. We were both actors who were known to many people, and when she was in the same agency as me, I knew to some extent how she was doing, so it was even more so.
Thatâs why I could not easily contact her even when she had a drunk driving accident. I heard on the YouTube channel representing the deceasedâs family that the CEO of her final agency said that she was having a hard time because of me at the time of the drunk driving incident. But I know that she was dating someone else at that time. In that situation, I was cautious about contacting her. We were already living our own lives, and I didnât know what to say. My words may sound like excuses. I also wanted to just stay quiet no matter what the world said.
I always receive a lot of misunderstandings as much as I receive excessive love. Things that are not true also circulate as if they are true. I thought that was also something I had to bear. But the deceasedâs family is claiming that I drove the deceased to her death because I was her ex-boyfriend. They are forcing me to confess to things I didnât do. âYou manipulated the deceased since she was a minor. You pressured the deceased with money and killed her. So you are a murderer.â
First, please listen to this audio. After the family exposed my relationship with the deceased, the YouTube channel that conveys the familyâs position released the testimony of the CEO of the deceasedâs final agency. In a newly recorded call after the exposure, this person said that our agency pressured the deceased about her debts by sending a second certificate of contents regarding the debt relationship with the deceased. But in a call with my agencyâs CEO a year ago, she said something completely different. Please listen to it once.
I learned about this through this controversy, but this is the truth about the second certificate of contents. But I donât know why the CEO of the deceasedâs final agency is lying, saying something completely different from the call a year ago. I will admit to anything I did wrong. I think itâs a must to take responsibility for anything I have to take responsibility for. But I canât say that I did something I didnât do. The audio testimonies that the family is claiming were recorded newly after the incident was exposed.
The same goes for the KakaoTalk content that the family initially released. There are too many incorrect facts in this KakaoTalk to say that the deceased wrote it. The photo that was said to be from 2016 was actually from 2019. Also, the deceased could not have been wrong about the age difference between us. In addition, she couldnât have been wrong about the name of the agency she was a part of for four years and the contract period. And the deceased only worked as an actress at our company. She never did any casting or visual directing.
Through a recent press conference, the family also released content from KakaoTalk conversations that I allegedly exchanged with the deceased. And that YouTube channel is framing me as a pedophile and a minor groomer by using the statements in the KakaoTalk conversations from 2016 as evidence. However, the person who is talking to the deceased in the KakaoTalk conversation from 2016 and the KakaoTalk conversation from 2018 are different people.
To prove this fact, I submitted the KakaoTalk conversations from 2016 and 2018, that the family submitted, and conversations that I shared with my acquaintances this year to a verification agency that scientifically analyzes statements. As a result, the agency concluded that the people in 2016 and 2018 are not the same person, as you can see.
The most painful thing since the familyâs exposure began was this. When my agency and I release our stance on the familyâs evidence, a newly recorded testimony is suddenly released. Photos and videos that subtly change the timing of the incident, and edited KakaoTalk images that are not the original, are presented as evidence. False testimonies and false evidence are continuing under the pretext that I dated the deceased.
I will accept any criticism for the choices I made. But that doesnât mean that everything that is not true becomes true. Just as I have taken verification procedures for KakaoTalk, I will take procedures to thoroughly verify everything that the family is presenting as evidence through investigative agencies. If the evidence that the family has is really true, I request that they submit all the data to the investigative agency and be verified through legal procedures.
Even at this moment, I have people who are only looking at me and who I have to take responsibility for. I am seeing those people suffering and collapsing every day. I am afraid of what will be exposed and distorted again today to frame me as a murderer. I donât know what kind of fake evidence and fake testimonies will defame me and harass the people around me after this press conference is over.
But if I say that lies are the truth because I canât overcome the coercion, I will betray not only Kim Soo Hyun as a human being, but also everyone who has given trust and love to Kim Soo Hyun the star. I will give them pain that will last a lifetime. Even if I am Kim Soo Hyun who lives wearing a mask as a celebrity, I canât do that. What I did, I did. I can take all the criticism for that. But I will not do what I did not do. For all the people who still believe in me, I want to reveal that much. I will not ask you to believe me. I will definitely prove it.”
Before leaving the premises, Kim Soo-hyun’s lawyer, Kim Jong Bok, says they filed criminal charges against the parties involved. The lawsuit names “the bereaved family members, an unidentified individual claiming to be his aunt, and the operators of HoverLab Inc for defamation under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilisation and Information Protection, etc. The complaint includes the emotional assessment report mentioned earlier by actor Kim Soo-hyun.”
If you understand Korean or you want to see the tearful apology, watch the thirty-minute video coverage below. According to a previous article on Soompi, the accused actor said he wouldn’t answer any questions at the press conference.
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