On the January 28 broadcast of Teugjongsesang, Park Jae Hyun broke his long silence. Debuting in 1996 through a youth drama, he was once considered a promising rookie before becoming a familiar face on Mystic TV: Surprise. However, he confessed that life off-camera was far from glamorous.

“I hated being confined to the title of ‘reenactment actor,’” he admitted, explaining that the label made him feel boxed in and stripped of his identity as a performer. While viewers recognized him on the street, the income from reenactment programs was insufficient to support his role as the head of a household.

Determined to provide for his family, Park laid down his pride and took on various jobs—from lighting crew work to running small SNS-based businesses. Yet the “former actor” label often stood in the way of new opportunities. Eventually, he left for Vietnam, hoping to start fresh where no one recognized him. However, even his attempt to launch a restaurant business abroad ended in failure, pushing him to what he described as rock bottom.

The driving force behind his relentless efforts was his eight-year-old daughter, who was born with a rare congenital condition in which her heart is positioned on the right side of her chest. Since birth, she has undergone four major surgeries. During the program, Park broke down in tears during a video call with her, saying, “I feel like a sinner for making her suffer because she met an inadequate father.”

In order to cover mounting medical expenses, he even prepared to open a café with a business partner in Vietnam, but settling overseas proved too difficult. After just three months, he returned to Korea—with nowhere stable to stay. Unexpectedly, he is now living at a shamanic shrine.

The family’s trials did not end there. While traveling across the country seeking spiritually reputed places to pray for their daughter’s health, Park’s wife—who is 16 years younger than him—began experiencing what is known in Korean shamanism as “spirit sickness.” Two years ago, she ultimately underwent a spiritual initiation ritual and chose the path of a shaman.

Park revealed his anguish, saying, “I quit broadcasting so my daughter wouldn’t hear at school that her father was just a reenactment actor. Now I worry she might be teased because her mother is a shaman.”

He currently stays at the shrine, supporting his wife while continuing to hope for his daughter’s full recovery and a return to ordinary family life. Though the glamorous stage lights that once shone on him have dimmed, Park Jae Hyun’s past decade has not been a quiet disappearance—but a father’s relentless battle.

The public once smiled at his performances on screen. Behind the scenes, he endured hardship in silence for the sake of his family. Today, viewers are rooting for Park Jae Hyun and his loved ones to find stability and happiness again—proving that sometimes, the most moving performance is the one lived in real life.

Sources: Daum