SEOUL (The Korea Herald/ANN): South Korean actress Jeon Jong-seo’s agency has denied recent accusations that she was a school bully, vowing to take legal action against what it said were groundless rumours.
“We have checked with Jeon and her acquaintances and have found that the (rumours) in the online posts are not true at all. We will pursue legal action to protect her,” her agency Andmarq said in a statement on April 4.
The controversy started on April 3 when an anonymous post surfaced on South Korean workplace community app Blind, alleging Jeon was a bully when she was in middle school.
The author of the post claimed Jeon, 29, who was in the hit Netflix series Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area (2022), would “frequently steal or snatch away other kids’ gym clothes and uniforms”.
The author added: “Just seeing Jeon’s face brings back those unpleasant memories.”
The star currently headlines the romantic comedy series Wedding Impossible, which is streaming on Prime Video. She rose to fame in the acclaimed 2018 psychological thriller Burning opposite Yoo Ah-in and Steven Yeun, and won Best Actress at the Baeksang Arts Awards for her role in the sci-fi thriller The Call (2020).
She is the latest among South Korean artistes whose alleged pasts have come back to haunt them.
On April 1, bullying accusations against actress Song Ha-yoon made headlines. Her agency initially denied accusations, but admitted on April 2 that the Marry My Husband (2024) star had been forced to transfer to another school “in relation to a school violence incident”.
The company said Song, 37, was not one of the perpetrators of the violence, despite the victim claiming otherwise.
Song’s level of involvement in the incident has not yet been verified, but the punishment she received was among the harshest for perpetrators of school violence.
South Korean law stipulates nine levels of punitive action by the education authorities against a student found to have committed bullying.
Forced transfer to another school is the second-harshest punishment behind expulsion.
Details of Jeon’s bullying remain murky as of April 4. But the names of both actresses have been circulating in the media since the revelations surfaced.
The South Korean public has historically been unforgiving toward artistes accused of school bullying in their past.
While such accusations may not kill their careers, the stars’ popularity tends to take a considerable dip if they turn out to be true.
A 2023 survey by South Korean pollster Real Research Korea asked 3,314 adults across the country what they thought of school violence cases involving celebrities.
About 24.3 per cent said those accused “should cease all appearances immediately” while 58.3 per cent said they should “put off appearances at least until the (accusation) is verified”.
Only 13.9 per cent thought celebrities should be able to work until an accusation was proven to be true or false. THE KOREA HERALD / ASIA NEWS NETWORK
