Do Yall Remember this picture?
Author: Russian Roulette
In the Korean media there has been a lot of talk about some new stuff about Yulhee and Minhwans divorce circulating.
I'm going to split this into two parts: The media articles that came out and then Yulhee's response which she posted on youtube a little over an hour or two ago?
Yulhee's response will have sensitive content in it. She discusses more things that happened in her marriage which were not pretty so please take this a sensitive content warning before you read her section.
Yulhee featured on TV show
Yulhee was featured on an episode of a tv show called "Now I'm Alone" which follows newly divorced people trying to adjust to single life again.
Yulhee talked about hardships she's faced over the years, but the thing that people talked about most on the internet was her mentioning of the divorce.
Yulhee stated that Minhwan was the one who asked for the divorce. She didn't think their relationship was in a crisis and was really caught off guard by it. She even thought maybe they could work things out and save their marriage, but in the end they decided to go their separate ways.
She also showed her new home and said despite it not being much/pretty empty she is happy with it.
Knets didn't seem to react positively to this episode, criticizing how dare she live a happy life and accused her of abandoning her children with her husband.
Reporter Lee Jin Ho criticizes Yulhee and "reveals struggles behind their divorce"
After this epsidode, a reporter named Lee Jin Ho then made an article in support of Minhwan critisizing Yulhee and revealing "hidden secrets behind their divorce".
The reporter stated that although the couple seemed fine on the outside, they fought a lot and had lifestyle differences behind closed doors.
He stated that Yulhee was a night owl while Minhwan was a morning person. Because of this, it was Minhwan's job to take the kids to school though it became hard for him to do so due to the long distance and his idol activities, causing his family to have to step in and help and causing a lot of fights between the couple. The reporter criticized Yulhee for not being able to wake up in the morning to help with the kids.
He then talked about how Covid affected them and now Minhwan's concerts and Yulhee's influencer activities made up the majority of their income.
Yulhee's influencer activities caused her to be outside of the house a lot which was difficult because Minhwan was an idol with activities. There was apparently one incident where Yulhee had to left for influencer activities when Minhwan was preparing to leave for a concert and it caused him stress.
Something else apparently happened which caused her to leave home for 4-5 days. We don't know why she left the house, but it seems they reconciled and were fine when they returned, but divorce news broke out shortly after.
He also revealed the divorce agreement was that Minhwan did not ask for child support despite getting the kids, though Yulhee agreed to get no assets in the divorce because of this.
Side comment: I'm not sure where to put this, but some additional information I would like to share is that although Minhwan did occasionally do concerts and have some idol activities when COVID hit it was shared that Yulhee's influencer activities is what primarily supported the household financially. I don't think Minhwan's concerts (which were probably limited due to covid) actually contributed much.
Yulhee speaks up
About 3-ish hours ago Yulhee made a video defending herself and talking about the divorce and relationships.
The video is in Korean, though I have been going through the youtube comments and people have begun translating it on twitter so here is a summary of what she said:
- She said they both agreed on sending the children to the fancy English school. She said it was hard on both of them (not just him) but they both agreed they could handle it and it was worth it.
- Yulhee also clarified the commute to and from school was not the reason for the divorce.
- The biggest part of this video was Yulhee revealing that Minhwan would frequently got to hostess bars.
- He would drop thousands of dollars at hostess bars but wouldn't contribute to their kid's education (to my understanding from the Korean video comments, it seems Yulhee's activities mostly paid for the kid's schooling).
- He was very degrading towards both the hostess bar women and Yulhee
- He would even wait over an hour just to get into the hostess bars he was that desperate.
- There are recorded phone calls where he is arranging prostitution with the hostess bar women (even the host bar workers seemed concerned he was becoming addicted to prostitution). In the video she shared some of the recordings of him calling to arrange prostitution with dates on multiple occasions.
- From the phone calls it seems he would turn down spending holiday/vacation time with his wife and kids to go meet hostesses, and even asked someone on the phone to find a place where he can meet a hostess at 4am.
I will put this next part under a spoiler but it is sensitive content:
- It seems Minhwan SA-ed Yulhee a few times. She said he would frequently inappropriately touch her in front of his parents. She just assumed maybe he was drunk when he was doing this, but looking back this behavior was probably his behavior when he was at the host bars.
- There was also an instance where when they were at home he folded up cash and put it between her breasts. She was confused and uncomfortable with it, but once again looking back I guess he was at the hostess bars so much he started treating her like the hostess women.
- I haven't seen any foreign people translate this yet but there's Korean comments talking about it, but they said Yulhee said she sort of regretted not going to the police about his inappropriate behavior towards her? And wondered if it was too late to do so? Once again there isn't an english translation of the video out yet and no foreign outlets are talking about it, so believe this at your own digression, though from the Korean comments i'm seeing talk about this I believe it.
- He was the one who asked for divorce but only offered her $36,000 if she took the kids and little to no child support (People commented that most Korean men don't even pay child support at all).
-He was also only offering her 200,000 won in child support which is about 145 USD. This was apparently so pathetically low there were TONS of comments on the video saying that amount of money wouldn't even support 1 person to live, let alone a mom and 3 kids.
- She was pretty much forced to give up her kids and leave them with him because of this. With him the kids can have financial security, but if she were to take them they would all pretty much be broke and she wouldn't be able to support themselves.
Here is the video for anyone who wishes to watch it:
Just to provide some other comment's people are saying on the video:
- A lot of people are urging Yulhee to please get tested for STD's and such.
- Some people are critisizing her for airing his dirty out in public and think she should have kept this to herself for the sake of the kids.
- Almost all of the comments seem to be supporting Yulhee.
It was suddenly just announced that FT Island's Minhwan will be halting all activities for the foreseeable future.
Representatives from The Return Of Superman show has released news to various media outlets that they have decided to cut Minhwan out of the show immediately.
I have two different statements for this:
"Choi Minhwan's departure from the program has been decided. There is no pre-filmed content to be aired at this time."
Choi Minhwan has decided to drop out of the program, and there is no filming.
I'm not really sure if this was the same statement just two different translations, or two different statements so I included them both
The demand for him to leave the show was overwhelming. KBS said they got tons of calls and the online complaints got so bad they had to shut down the online fan bulletin board.
FNC then released a statement saying that Minhwan will be stopping all media activities.
This is their full statement:
While it is difficult for the agency to confirm the full details of the artist's private life such as issues from his marriage, we still feel responsible for the disappointment that the public and many viewers may have felt from Choi Minhwan. Therefore, Choi Minhwan intends on halting all media activities indefinitely, including the program where he is appearing with his children. We deeply apologize for causing many people discomfort and concern.
It seems KBS was going to kick him out anyway but he decided to leave out of his own free will.
Additionally, it was also announced in the media that a police investigation will begin regarding Minhwan's solicitation of prostitutes.
The Seol Gangnam Police Station has received the case and is investigating.
Prostitution and buying prostitutes is illegal in South Korea, and there are two charges Minhwan can face if convicted:
The charges for soliciting prostitutes is up to 1 year or prison and a fine of up to 3 million KRW (Around 2100 USD).
The charges for paying for prostitution, which is what Minhwan would most likely be charged with (since Yulhee reported he spent thousands on prostitutes) is up to three years in prison with/or a fine of 30 million won (around 21,500 USD).
FNC has yet to release a statement addressing the police investigation.
