Yoon Hae-jung (69), a singer from the mixed duet 'Donggeurami' and a successful entrepreneur, opened up about her painful past.
On the MBN program 'Exclusive World' aired on the 22nd, Yoon Hae-jung reflected on her sudden retirement and divorce from her ex-husband.
Yoon Hae-jung, who gained popularity in 1982 with the song 'Please Let Me Stay Together', recalled, “It felt like a miracle. I woke up one day and I was a star.”
She said, “I pinched my thighs every day. I performed at more than ten nightclubs a day, and after just a couple of months, I could buy an apartment with that amount of money at the time,” adding, “In three months, 70,000 copies of the album were sold, and I was nominated for KBS's Top 10 Singers alongside 'Gold and Silver'. I was on a roll. The problem was that it lasted only three months.”
Yoon Hae-jung stated that she was effectively expelled from the entertainment industry after canceling a live broadcast schedule on the same day. The reason was her husband at the time.
She revealed, “My husband was addicted to gambling at that time. People like him would go from inn to inn to gamble. His running away caused me to miss all my live broadcasts.”
Moreover, he was also involved in infidelity. Yoon Hae-jung shared, “A fellow singer called me to say, ‘Your husband appeared on a morning broadcast with another woman.’ When I asked the producer, he said, ‘The wife is sick and can’t sing, so we had to change the singing partner and let him appear.’ He had run away and performed on stage with another woman.”
She added, “He even disappeared after owing money to colleagues he was working with.”
Yoon Hae-jung's choice was ultimately divorce. As a single mother raising her daughter alone, she expressed, “I felt so sorry for my daughter. I realize how hard it was for her to grow up without a father,” but also showed deep affection by saying, “I was able to endure because of my daughter at that time.”
Later, she even battled ovarian cancer. Despite this, she became a '100 billion asset holder' and calmly confessed, “I was scammed in marriage and lost all my assets to a con artist, but I really worked hard.”
