Credit: “Fairy Jaehyung” YouTube
Kim Yoo Jung opened up for the first time about the emotional wounds she carried as a child actor—revealing that behind her image as “the nation’s little sister,” the reality was “far more exhausting” than anyone imagined.
In the latest episode of Jung Jae Hyung’s YouTube show “Fairy Jaehyung,” released on the 16th, host Jung Jaehyung said he had long wondered “how Yoo Jung, who the whole country practically raised since she was four, actually lived in her everyday life.”
Kim Yoo Jung quietly nodded before adding, “I’ve almost never talked about this.”
When Jung asked whether she enjoyed being recognized at school—“Everyone must have called out your name, right?”—she answered without hesitation. “Back then, I hated it. I could feel my friends treating me differently. (When I was filming as a guimiho) They’d call me things like, ‘Hey, gumiho. Show us your fangs.’”
For an elementary schooler, being a recognized child actor brought not attention but pressure and often isolation. Kim revealed she even learned to read in a different way from other kids. “I learned Hangul through scripts. Someone would read the lines next to me and I’d memorize them exactly as they were.”
It was a glimpse into the reality of a child who had to live as an actor before she even had a chance to be a kid.
She shared that her teenage years overlapped with filming Moon Embracing the Sun . “There was a time I didn’t leave my room for a whole month,” she said. Although she was receiving every spotlight as the nation’s beloved young star, internally, she was facing changes and emotions far too heavy for her age.
Kim Yoo Jung’s candid confession adds a new layer to a past often viewed only as a “sparkling child-star success story.” Viewers responded with surprise and empathy, saying, “I had no idea she felt this way,” and “She grew stronger through all of that—that’s why she’s the Kim Yoo Jung we see today.”
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