Stars Facing School Violence Allegations After Rising To Stardom: Song Ha-yoon, Kim Hieora & Cho Byung-gyu
The Korean entertainment industry has been suffering from a series of school violence controversies of actors
Actress Song Ha-yoon, who gained huge attention after starring tvN’s “Marry My Husband”, recently denied school violence allegations.
Earlier on April 1st, a JTBC program reported an informant’s disclosure of actress S’s school violence. The informant claimed that S slapped him for one and a half hours without any reason. Accordingly, S was even forced to transfer to another high school in Gangnam-gu, Seoul after receiving punishment Level 8 for her involvement in a group assault.
Although the program did not reveal the actress’s name, everyone easily found out that it was Song Ha-yoon due to the photo with her blurred face and the description, “She played a villain role in a popular drama recently”. Song Ha-yoon’s agency King Kong by Starship later refuted the accusation, emphasizing that it was only the informant’s unilateral claim. The agency tried to contact the informant but received no answer.
Becoming a rising star with Netflix’s hit “The Glory”, actress Kim Hieora suffered school violence rumors.
In September last year, rumors spread that Kim Hieora was a member of the iljin (bully) group Park Sangji during her middle school days. According to the accusation, Kim Hieora committed money extortion and assault and used abusive language in school.
As the controversy intensified, Kim Hieora’s agency issued an explanation and she also denied the allegations of school violence, saying “I never maliciously, consistently, and deliberately bullied the weak and lived cowardly like that”. Later, Kim Hieora’s classmates also released testifies supporting the actress. The actress then took legal action against the medal outlets that reported the school violence allegations.
Actor Cho Byung-gyu’s school violence scandal arose right after he gained recognition with OCN’s drama “The Uncanny Counter” in 2021. At that time, a netizen claimed to have been a victim of Cho Byung-gyu’s school violence when Cho Byung-gyu was attending a school in New Zealand.
As further revelations continued, Cho Byung-gyu temporarily suspended his activities to focus on dealing with the case. The actor then denied the school violence suspicions and requested a police investigation through his agency.
Amid the ongoing legal battle, Cho Byung-gyu made his comeback with “The Uncanny Counter Season 2” but the drama ended with lower ratings compared to the previous season.
