It’s been revealed that the King of Kpop Seo Taiji has actually been married for years to actress Lee Ji-ah, but that was only found out because they are currently going through divorce proceedings. News of this ‘marriage’ is rocking the Kpop world not only because of the secret of it itself, but that it seems to have come to a head because in March of this year Lee Ji-ah was outed to have been secretly dating her Athena co-star Jung Woo-sung. * jaw drops and speechless*
We all know that there are TONS of secret liaisons going on in the Korean entertainment scene, but this is a biggie. Even Yang Hyun-suk of YG Entertainment who was one of the ‘boys’ of Seo Taiji and The Boys responded with disbelief and astonishment when contacted by the media with the news for a statement (although I don’t know why since he himself had a long secret relationship going on until he revealed it because she was pregnant). KeyEast, was also contacted being the management company of Lee Ji-ah, and they also denied any knowledge of the marriage or the ensuing divorce. Seo Taiji and Lee Ji-ah are both known to be super secret about their private lives and not much is known about either, especially Lee Ji-ah. Some think that they were able to keep this secret for so long (or for however long it has been- reports vary) due to their secretiveness, their use of their real names Jung Hyun-chul and Kim Ji-ah instead of their stage names, and that they both travel a lot outside of Korea with much not known of their whereabouts.
Of course this story is splashed all over headlines throughout the Korean news media and due to the uncertainty of the whole issue all kinds of stories are coming out: they were actually married in the US in 1997 when he was 25 and she was 16, but wait 16 would be kind of illegal so she’s actually been lying about her age all along and is actually 3 years older than she claims so she was 19 (which is still a bit young really, but better than 16), that they’re not really married but were in a common law relationship, no wonder how Lee Ji-ah got that sweet lead role as a nobody in the Bae Yong-joon drama The Legend which earned her a Best Actress award in 2007, that she’s asking for a settlement of between 500 million and 5 billion won… at this point I have no idea what to believe.
The only thing that I can say for sure is that Seo Taiji and Lee Ji-ah seem to have been in some kind of relationship and are now going through some kind of proceedings over alimony and a split of assets because that relationship is now over and that she is currently dating Jung Woo-sung (I wonder if he knew?). I wonder if that person who took the picture of Lee Ji-ah and Jung Woo-sung in Paris knew it would lead to all this (although some reports say that Lee Ji-ah filed the papers in January and there was an initial proceeding in March before the news broke over the latest proceeding that occurred on the 18th)?
Wow, talk about Korean dramas- this is just too much secrets and intrigue for me to handle… I now have a super huge headache.
(OSEN, MyDaily, FinancialNews, AsiaTodayNews, MyDaily, TheKoreaEconimcDaily, Newsen, Newsen)
