Comedian Kim Won-hyo confessed the hardships of being a special recruit.
On the 21st, a video titled ‘From KBS 22nd Special Recruitment to Leader | The Story of How I Eventually Made It’ was posted on ‘Jo Dongari’.
In the video, Kim Won-hyo, who debuted as a comedian in KBS 22nd Special Recruitment in 2007, appeared and revealed, “What’s different about KBS compared to other places is that the salary for special recruits and regular recruits is different. Special recruits earn much less.”
Kim Won-hyo disclosed, “Back then, if regular recruits earned 1.5 million won a month, I earned about 450,000 won. I received tens of thousands of won per episode.” Ji Seok-jin was surprised, saying, “Regular recruits earn 300,000 to 400,000 won? That’s a huge difference.”
He also mentioned that during the peak of his career with ‘Gag Concert - Emergency Countermeasure Committee’, his appearance fee was lower than that of his colleagues. He recalled, “Others thought I was getting paid a lot. Even though I received an award, my pay didn’t increase because I was a special recruit. When I asked the director to raise it a bit after the early stages of ‘Emergency Countermeasure Committee’, he finally raised it.”
When Ji Seok-jin suggested that the director might not have known, Kim Won-hyo replied, “At that time, I felt like I was being rewarded. My pay went up, and I shot over 30 commercials,” but he also expressed his worries, saying, “I was afraid that if I asked to raise my appearance fee, I would be disliked and my corner would disappear overnight. Plus, since my catchphrase was ‘No way’, I thought the director would respond with ‘No way’ if I asked for a raise.”
Shim Jin-hwa and Kim Won-hyo got married in 2011. The couple has been open about their attempts at in vitro fertilization but recently announced that they have decided to live without children.
[Ji Seung-hoon, Star Today Reporter]
