On December 28, U.S. broadcast station CNN and U.K. broadcast station BBC each posted a long article that analyzed the cause of the late Lee Sun-kyun’s passing away on their main website. Both of them pointed out social factors that might have resulted in the death of the late actor.
CNN explained “Lee’s death came while he was being investigated for illegal drug use at time when South Korea’s conservative government has been pushing a crackdown on drugs and the police are under pressure to deliver results.”
The media outlet also pointed out the police’s hasty behavior. “South Korean law prohibits those involved in a criminal investigation from releasing facts about the suspect before a public indictment is released,” it said. In fact, the police conducted the investigation based only on the statements made by the head of the adult entertainment establishment. Based on text messages and recordings obtained from her phone, Lee Sun-kyun was put in the investigation. They even announced his name at the internal investigation stage.
The report stressed that the Korean society is facing a crisis related to mental health. It mentioned Korea’s suicide rate in 2021 (26 per 100,000 people), “South Korea also has the highest rate of youth suicide among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations.”
It was analyzed that the Korean public’s high standards for celebrities had influenced the artists’ mental health. The deaths of SHINee’s Jonghyun in 2017, f(x)’s Sulli, KARA’s Goo Hara in 2019 and ASTRO’s Moonbin in April 2023 are a few examples.
Meanwhile, in its recent report, BBC also stressed this point. “The “abundance of attention… social pressure and finger pointing,” that South Korean celebrities face during a police investigation leads to “destructive shame”, psychiatrist Peter Jong-ho Na told the BBC’s Newshour.
Meanwhile, Lee was found dead in a car parked at a park in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul on the morning of December 27th. He was 48 years old. His mortuary hall was set up at the funeral hall of Seoul National University Hospital.
Source: CNN and BBC
