South Korean actress Ha Young who recently got her big break over her small but memorable role as the male lead’s love interest in Teach You a Lesson suddenly found herself facing mounting backlash over her great-grandfather allegedly being a Japanese colonial collaborator. Now the leading lady in the new Netflix series Our Sticky Love, the 33-year-old actress had gone on a variety show to share how she comes from a family of doctors starting from her great-grandfather whom she says was one of the doctors to establish Western medicine in Korea.
However, K-netizens subsequently uncovered records indicating that her great-grandfather, Ahn Sang-ho, was affiliated with pro-Japanese organizations during the Japanese colonial period in the early 1900s . Ha Young’s agency, Bistus Entertainment, initially rejected the allegations as having no basis before confirming it the following day and issuing an apology. The controversy escalated to calls for a boycott. Advertisements featuring Ha Young were reportedly withdrawn and promotional activities for Our Sticky Notes have been canceled.
Incidentally, Lee Je-hoon found himself trending as well as the two have the upcoming drama The Long Shot Trial stars Ha Young as rookie attorney opposite the actor. The legal comedy series was reportedly planned for broadcast in the first half of 2027. However, the issues surrounding Ha Young’s family has raised questions about how the drama will be affected especially as SBS confirmed that they’ve already completed a significant portion of filming. ‘
Furthermore, it is not the first time one of Lee Je Hoon’s co-stars has been caught in a scandal. In 2021, Lee Na-eun was replaced by Pyo Ye-jin in SBS’s Taxi Driver following bullying allegations within K-pop group APRIL . Production underwent reshoots though the drama ultimately became a major success. More recently, the highly-anticipated sequel to Signal was affected by Cho Jin-woong who withdrew from the entertainment industry after his controversy. Meanwhile, Ha Young’s other projects are also under scrutiny, such as the confirmed sequels to The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call.
Wendy
At first I didn’t understand why an actress is publically jumped on after boasting about her great-grandfather’s profession. So I looked further into it.
It’s actually quite understandable why Koreans are so mad about her boasting about her great-grandfather being a ‘doctor’. He did human experiments on fellow Koreans during Japan’s occupation of Korea; torturing and murdering many and appropriated the victims’ wealth.
That is why her family is currently very wealthy. It is literally blood money.
He is so infamous (her great-grandfather) that he is in Korean history books named as a mega-traitor. He famously poisoned the Korean king of the time. It’s highly unlikely that she is unaware of what he did; afterall she would have read about her great-grandfather in history class multiple times.
Why she wanted to flex about her relationship to a Nazi-Japanese occupation human torturing doctor? One so famous his name is in the country’s history books? Only she could explain it; I certainly don’t unstand it.
On a side note; I hope Lee Je Hoon doesn’t get branded as ‘unlucky’ to cast for production crews.
Drama Fan
How interesting! Thank you for looking into this further and yes, if her great grandfather were guilty of these atrocious crimes. Then the Korean backlash is indeed justified. As far as why she flexed about her ancestor’s medical background? I would say that the information passed down from generation to generation has been watered down, amended to hide the truth and/or out right lies. Imagine, would your elders/ancestors pass down that sort of information to their children? That their great grandfather was pro Japanese and a traitor who committed crimes against his own people? I think not. So unless she has done research like yourself, she may have heard all the wonderful stories about her great grandfather and just believed it. However, has now stupidlly disclosed to the Korean people her great grandfather’s traitorous past.
On the other hand, if she did know and still decided to flex about her family background, then that’s just plain arrogance and stupidity.
Wendy
Anyone looking for a balance and impartial video to learn about this actress’s family situation can go on yout*be and search for a video titled “Korean Actress Ha Young Cancelled Over Her Family’s Dark Colonial Past” done by Klassy Korea. Its a bit long, 31 minutes but pretty informative.
avarachika
Wow! 31 minutes? That’s a lot of history to cover then.