Comedian Jung Chul-kyu has spoken out directly after online speculation mounted over the identity of a senior comedian who he revealed verbally abused him for six years.
Jung recently appeared on the YouTube channel "Namumiki" and confessed that he endured verbal abuse from a senior colleague for about six years in the past. Following the broadcast, online communities began speculating about the identity of the abuser, pointing fingers particularly at comedians who debuted through KBS.
As the controversy continued, Jung left direct comments on social media posts where rumors were spreading, stating, "Ryu Dam, Roh Woo-jin, and Kim Jin-chul are frequently being mentioned, but to cut to the chase, it is not them."
He went on to explain, "Woo-jin is a junior and a close friend. Ryu Dam and I have barely even had a conversation. And Jin-chul hyung never nagged me and we are still close." He added, "If you look at the video as a whole, the focus was on how I went through those past trials, overcame them, and am now living a happy and hard-working life. Thank you," while asking people to refrain from making hasty guesses.
Earlier, Jung Chul-kyu appeared on the YouTube channel "Namumiki" and confessed that he suffered verbal abuse from a senior for about six years.
During the broadcast, he recalled, "That senior must have disliked me. Whenever he came to the meeting room, he would say things like make sure not to get caught in his sight and that he would kill me. It wasn't even six days, it was six years. It was so hard." He added, "I asked that senior at a "Gag Concert" MT (membership training) what I had done wrong and said I would fix it if I really did anything wrong, but he said, 'You didn't do anything wrong. I just hate you so get lost.' I thought there was no answer to that."
He explained that when fellow comedian Park Joon-hyung, who witnessed the situation at the time, tried to stop him by saying, "Stop it already. Why are you doing that to Blanka?", the senior reacted by saying, "I just hate him. This bastard is annoying."
Jung stated that he suffered from low self-esteem and insomnia during this period, leading him to visit a psychiatric department. "The biggest self-loathing came when I felt like a useless person who wasn't treated well anywhere. As my spirits started to plummet and I couldn't sleep, I took depression medication and sleeping pills," he said, adding that he later started exercising and recovered his self-esteem by working as a multicultural instructor.
Meanwhile, Jung gained massive popularity in 2004 for his role as Blanka, a Sri Lankan migrant worker character, on KBS2's "Laugh Club".
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Kyung-youn)
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