Actress Sunwoo Yong-yeo (79) mentioned her difficult past while bearing her husband's debt.
On the 21st, during the tvN entertainment program ‘You Quiz on the Block’, Sunwoo Yong-yeo shared the story of how she went to the police station to find her husband who did not show up at their wedding, and ended up inheriting 2 billion won in debt.
On that day, Sunwoo Yong-yeo revealed that she got married right after getting pregnant at the age of 23, despite her parents' opposition. She mentioned that on the day of the ceremony, her groom was taken to the police station.
Sunwoo Yong-yeo explained, “My husband lost his father when he was eighteen and thought of someone who was his sister's father-in-law as a father figure. That person took out a promissory note for 17.5 million won to run for parliament, but he couldn't repay it, so my husband promised to pay it back. However, he couldn't repay the money and was taken to the police station on our wedding day.”
To find her husband, Sunwoo Yong-yeo went to the police station and ended up signing a guarantee document presented by someone, which led her to inherit the debt. She revealed, “Someone told me that if I signed the document, my husband would be released. So I signed it right away. From that moment, I became a debtor.”
Hearing this, Yoo Jae-suk exclaimed, “In the 1960s, 17.5 million won would be worth about 20 billion won today,” expressing his surprise.
Sunwoo Yong-yeo said, “I thought, ‘Now appearing on TV is my job. I have to do everything that comes my way.’ From that point on, movies and dramas started pouring in,” and she mentioned that she paid off the debt after working hard for ten years.
She continued, “I heard that ‘Soonpoong Obstetrics and Gynecology’ was very popular, but I didn’t even have time to realize it and worked without a break,” and shared that she suffered a cerebral infarction during that tough time. Afterward, she resolved to “live for myself.”
Sunwoo Yong-yeo became pregnant before marriage with her husband, the late Kim Se-myung, who was ten years her senior, and retired after giving birth. She immigrated to the United States in 1982 and returned to Korea in 1989. The late Kim Se-myung passed away in 2014 after battling illness.
In the late 1990s, she communicated with the public through the highly popular work ‘Soonpoong Obstetrics and Gynecology’. Sunwoo Yong-yeo's daughter, Choi Yeon-je, runs a Korean medicine clinic in the U.S., and her son-in-law is known to work in a well-known financial institution there.
Recently, Sunwoo Yong-yeo showcased her leisurely life through her YouTube channel ‘Soonpoong Sunwoo Yong-yeo’, where she resides in a home with a view of the Han River and enjoys hotel breakfasts. She also revealed that she owns a 65-year-old building in Itaewon, Seoul, drawing attention.
[Ji Seung-hoon, Star Today Reporter]
