#Jang ja yeon case update tv
While the police investigate, the South Korean media has finally condemned the industry for the way it treats its most marketable - and usually female - talent.įilm and TV viewers are now wondering how big a part abuse and the demands of "slave contracts" played in a spate of celebrity suicides originally put down to the pressures of fame. Yoo is now in hospital recovering from a suicide attempt. Jang was reportedly in Yoo's office when she wrote the note, copies of which he passed to her family. Kim has proclaimed his innocence, contesting that the letter was part of an attempt by Jang's former manager, Yoo Jang-ho, to ruin his business. When police raided Kim's office, they discovered a shower and bed in a "secret room" on the third floor. She was also forced to serve and consume drinks and to act as an escort at golf matches, she wrote. Jang reportedly claimed Kim had regularly beaten her and forced her to have sex with a string of VIPs, including directors, media executives and CEOs. The villain of the piece, according to South Korean reports, is her agent, Kim Sung-hoon, who is now in Japan following accusations he molested a male model.
Her allegations, leaked to the media, have prompted an outcry and forced the police to investigate her relationships with several powerful men. Almost one million fans visited her website in the 48 hours after her death, on 7 March. In the seven-page letter, written a week before her death, the star of Boys Over Flowers, South Korea's most avidly watched soap opera, chronicled the sexual and other favours she was expected to extend to progress in the cutthroat "Korean Wave" of TV and film.Īfter making her debut in a 2006 TV commercial, Jang cemented her fame as a vindictive schoolgirl in the soap, and was awaiting the release of her first two films when she died. In a damning letter naming the men responsible for the distress that may have caused her to take her life aged 26, Jang heaped shame on the country's entertainment industry with allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. When Jang Ja-yeon killed herself at her home earlier this month, she not only deprived South Korea of a wildly popular soap star.