Gaslighting And Forced Abortion Accusations Against “Actor K” Are Taking Over The Internet — Here Are The Full Translations

While there is no concrete evidence to identify “Actor K,” Korean media outlets have singled out one individual.

Content Warning

This article includes descriptions of violence that may disturb some readers.

On October 19 KST, actor Kim Seon Ho’s agency, SALT Entertainment, has issued an official response about the ongoing speculations.

On October 17, 2021 at 5PM KST, an anonymous Korean female shared an alarming revelation via the online community website Nate Pann—accusing a “rising star Actor K” of having caused her irreversible trauma since the two started dating in early 2020.

The original post titled, “Revealing The Rising Actor K’s Two-Sided Shamelessness.” | Nate Pann

The lengthy accusation started off by clarifying that she, as a victim of physical and mental abuse including an abortion forced upon her by Actor K, is “not exposing him because of a bad breakup,” but rather because she has not received the apology she seeks from him.

I am his ex-girlfriend. This isn’t solely about his sh*tty personality. I wouldn’t be wasting so much time on exposing him like this if that had been the only problem. I’m doing this because I cannot continue carrying on with my daily life when he’s all over television pretending to be someone he is not. Even though exposing him would mean that I have to reveal a lot of my personal history, which inevitably is risky for me as a female, I have decided to push forward. It’s not only the after-effects of a break-up that I’m dealing with. I’m also trying to make sense of all the sacrifices that I’ve had to make because of him—including an abortion. He tricked me into thinking he’d marry me. But he treated me like sh*t when he rose to fame, excusing himself for it saying that he’s sensitive because of work. I am in a state of severe psychological and physical trauma.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

The alleged ex-girlfriend claimed that she realized she should take action against Actor K when she read up on other cases of Korean male celebrities taking responsibility for their actions. And “because [Actor K] isn’t doing the same,” she is exposing him.

I realized a lot of things when I came across actor Kim Yong Gun’s and other premarital pregnancy cases. But Kim Yong Gun took responsibility for the abortion that he forced upon his girlfriend. And even the idol group member took responsibility and announced their decision to get married. This man whom I loved though, everyone thinks he’s a saint. But he has no conscience or sense of guilt.

I understand now that what he did to me is illegal. He violated my right to self-determination when he tricked me into believing a promise he never meant to keep and forced me to get an abortion I did not want. And I also found out that there are a lot of men out there who do this.

It has been over four months since we broke up and I thought at one point [Actor K] might ask for forgiveness from the bottom of his heart. It looks like he really loves acting, but he’s actually obsessed with money because he comes from a difficult childhood. And because of his constant need to be the center of attention and his greed for success, he takes for granted the sacrifices of the people around him. I thought he would treat me differently, but no. Following the breakup, he never apologized to me once because he was busy chasing money, shooting commercials,  and rising to stardom.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

According to the revelation, the relationship between Actor K and the alleged ex-girlfriend took a wild turn when she got pregnant. While the alleged ex-girlfriend’s doctor suggested she should keep the baby because the abortion would complicate her future pregnancies, Actor K supposedly convinced her to get rid of the baby.

We started seeing each other in early 2020. I have a lot of chat logs from the messages we exchanged on KakaoTalk when we were in a relationship. He did ask me to delete all our chat logs for ridiculous reasons, which I found strange, so I saved all of our conversations.

I, too, used to question why people don’t use contraception when I would read about unwanted pregnancies. And I kept myself on a solid birth control regimen while I was in the relationship with him. But there came a point in time when I had to stop taking birth control for a couple of months because of some health complications. During this period, I asked him to use contraception.

One day, however, he said he wanted to finish inside me. I thought, since I knew my fertility cycle and believed us to be in the safe window, I allowed it as a one-time deal. I ended up pregnant with Actor K’s child in July 2020. Honestly, I was very scared. We had to date in secret and we couldn’t even hold hands or walk close to each other in public. I had no idea what I would do once my belly started showing. How would I care for this child on my own? But I tried to convince him to let me keep the baby, saying that I would make the sacrifice and raise the child by myself until he’s ready to announce it. Yes, the unexpected pregnancy confused and scared me, but with his support, I was ready to bring the baby into the world. His child had been my first pregnancy (and first abortion). I’ve always had a weak uterus. I’ve constantly been reminded by my doctors that it would not be easy for me to have babies. So when I got pregnant, even my doctor told me, I wish you could have this baby. You might never get pregnant again if you abort it.’

I got in touch with Actor K and told him on the spot that the hospital is suggesting that I keep the baby for the sake of my future pregnancies. As any mother would, I wanted to birth the child of the man I loved. And as any woman would, I wanted to hear him agree and take responsibility for us. Over KakaoTalk, he acted like there was potential for us to talk it out. He even acted like he would take responsibility. But when we met in person to actually discuss, he was different. I have screenshots of the conversation I had with the piece of sh*t.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

Because Actor K had been so adamant about not having the baby, the alleged ex-girlfriend eventually gave in and got the abortion. She claimed that in the process of convincing her to get rid of the baby, Actor K had promised her a future together.

Actor K, who was in the middle of some show production, came to my place after the shoot and stayed for a few days. He spent several days trying to get me to say that I will get an abortion. At the time, I was about 6-7 weeks pregnant, so my belly felt really tense. I told him that I was in pain, but it didn’t matter to him. He said, ‘[Since you’re already pregnant], isn’t it okay to finish inside again?’ and demanded that I have sex with him. He did not use contraception. But he did tell me that I’m ‘his real family now.’

Then, he insisted that ‘it makes no sense to have a child only because the doctors said an abortion might jeopardize my future pregnancies.’ He tried to act like he also wanted the baby, but he did threaten me with the idea that a child in his life would cost him ₩900 million KRW (about $759,000 USD) in damages, which he couldn’t afford to pay. He used his parents against me, saying that having the baby would make it difficult for him to pursue his acting career and to take care of his parents. Come to think of it, he didn’t have any endorsements at the time and he wouldn’t have been charged ₩900 million KRW (about $759,000 USD) in contract termination penalties at all, but he used that to persuade me to get rid of the baby. 

He even threatened me by saying, ‘If the baby is born, I will resent the baby. It is your choice at the end of the day, but I don’t think I can ever love that baby.’ He put on a show, with tears in his eyes, saying that though we would be losing the baby, we’d be getting married soon. He said that he originally planned for our marriage four years from then but, with what happened, he’d aim for two years later. He promised me that he’d introduce me to his family and that he’d move in with me by the next year so we could be together. And I fell for it. I regret, to this day, having fallen for his lies. I should have stood up for my baby and insisted that I would raise it alone. Maybe then, the baby would be here with me today.

I told him though that I worry about what would happen if we ended up parting ways.  The abortion meant that I would never be able to have babies again. And if we were to break up, and if he were to move on, find someone else, get married, and have children of his own, then I would not be able to live with myself. He told me not to worry. Now that I think about it, he has always used his parents as an excuse. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the break up made me see.

Anyway, I decided to abort the baby. It was a difficult decision, but I made it. His only friend and theater hoobae [censored name], whom he has actually mentioned on show programs before, accompanied me to the hospital. Actor K didn’t come in with me, he stayed in the car. Instead, his friend pretended to be the father of the baby. I’m really dumb to have thought that letting him do this is me being considerate of his needs. He was being selfish and manipulative every second, but I didn’t notice. Like that, I said goodbye to the first and only baby that I would ever have in my life.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

Yet, following the abortion, the alleged ex-girlfriend claimed that Actor K became a different person.

After I aborted the baby, Actor K changed. He sent me ₩2.00 million KRW (about $1,690 USD) for the procedure and other medical expenses. It’s not like I wanted more anyway and I didn’t try to threaten him about it, complain about it, or resent him for it. I was afraid that my relationship with him would fall apart.

I thought I would keep him updated about the expenses, so I sent him the receipts. I wanted to let him know how his money had been spent. That’s when he got angry with me, asking if I was trying to make him feel guilty. I’m the one who suffered mental and physical trauma, yet he would have more emotional ups and downs. As soon as the baby left us, the man who promised to marry me and build a future with me started accusing me of holding the abortion over his head and giving me hell about it. Blaming work stress, he became inexplicably irritable toward me. I believed it when he said he’s having a hard time on set and I was patient and understanding with him because I loved him. I thought all actors go through these stressful ditches. While I was undergoing a lot of difficult changes post-abortion both physically and mentally, I put up with Actor K because I trusted him to keep his promise. I thought once the production was over, we would move in together.

He said that everyone knew how sensitive he can get when it comes to working. So I tried to be rational with him even if he got unreasonably agitated during these shoots. I made my sacrifices to let him do whatever he wanted. This went on for eight months in our relationship and it is during this period that he started gaining popularity. At first, he pretended to be sorry as he showered me with promises about us going on trips overseas and living together when the production ended. By the end of 2020 though, after some commercial endorsements came through, he became absolutely shameless.

As time went on, he became more and more irritable. I continued to apologize for everything without knowing why and I tried to make him happy. He would pick fights with me if I responded in a way that he didn’t like. He would never listen to me. Whenever he was in a bad mood, he would criticize me over the smallest things—like the way I text, for example. I was basically trying all day to fit in with him and not upset him. But because I thought of him as my husband-to-be and family, I carried on and put up with his ups and downs. I think, because his managers and stylists all try to make him feel good about himself, he expected the same from his family and friends too. Because of him, I’m firmly convinced that I should never, ever date a person from this industry again.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

In the revelation, the alleged ex-girlfriend pointed out that Actor K’s reputation in the industry is completely opposite of what he’s like in real life. She exposed his personality flaws, accusing him of being a constant gaslighter and a whiner.

He’s the type of person who will say anything to get what he wants. He would threaten to break up with me whenever we got into fights. And unlike his reputation on television, he is actually pretty good at cursing. I have never cursed at him but he would often say ‘f*ck’ and other violent swear words in front of me. His actions felt threatening sometimes, too. Meanwhile, I have not once tried to threaten to leave him or gaslight him with my words.

He may not have intended to be this way, but with popularity, he changed so quickly. He felt like a different person to me and it pushed us apart. But still, I loved him. So I tried to understand and I waited for him to come to his senses. Whenever he would interview that he doesn’t have a girlfriend—as all celebrities do, I trusted it to be a part of the act that he has to put on for his career. Sometimes he would apologize for lying about our relationship… but soon, his lies became his reality. He would deny my existence to his celebrity friends, both male and female. I remained in complete secrecy for him and his popularity.

I suffered a lot. As he became more popular, he started endorsing more deals. He started making more female celebrity friends. His life started changing. And through it all, I remained his secret girlfriend. Looking back on it now, I think I understand why he grew so agitated with me struggling to trust him. I see why he pretended to be honest with me when he had been lying the whole time. After the abortion, I was mentally unstable and my self-esteem had been shattered. I was vulnerable. I have screenshots of our conversations, but I won’t attach them because they could get me into trouble.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

The revelation went on to reveal other character flaws that Actor K has apparently been hiding from the public. The alleged ex-girlfriend insisted that he is actually rude toward his industry sunbae and hoobae colleagues behind the scenes.

He might look like a good person on television, but he is actually cold and ungrateful. He would constantly badmouth the people he worked with on a daily basis. I could see why he doesn’t have a lot of friends. He even said that the senior actors whom he said that he admired weren’t actually all that great. Also, he would belittle the show which gave him that initial boost of popularity for having a dumb title. He also talked about how the following show underwent a title change since offering him a role and said that unless it goes back to the original title (which centers the show a bit more around his character), he would turn down the offer. Personally, I don’t think I would badmouth my coworkers as it would only show what kind of a person I am. But he didn’t hold back when he criticized the screenwriter and the director. With so much sarcasm, he referred to his director as a ‘crazy person trying to be artistic,’ complaining about how the director would shoot a single scene over and over again.

In fact, he hated the show that he was in last year. Even before he started shooting the show, he was so against it. After it aired, he said he would rather pretend he was never in the show. On the set, he had to be constantly coddled. He called the show childish and insisted that neither the show nor the character he plays is good. He referred to it as a flaw in his career. Throughout the production period, he remained extremely negative toward the director, cast, and staff. Only when the show ended up becoming a hit, did he pretentiously thank the director for giving him the character of his life.

He also criticized his co-stars’ looks, saying that they are not his type. He would even evaluate their acting skills, commenting that they’re not good and/or that they’re no longer popular. So to watch him act all sweet and gentle in front of these co-stars, it disgusted me.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

Soon after the rise to fame, Actor K wanted out of the relationship. According to the revelation, the breakup came out of the blue when Actor K had slowly but surely removed traces of the alleged ex-girlfriend from his life.

Once he reached stardom with the show, he started doing things he didn’t use to do. He started making strange excuses and deleted all my pictures from his phone. He even changed how he saved my name on his phone and made it look like I’m some man. He asked me to delete my KakaoTalk account, too. He personally selected the pictures that he forced me to delete from my computer. By the end of the year, when his popularity had really peaked, he told me that Dispatch found out about our relationship and that his agency was having a hard time dealing with the news. He got angry at me, blaming me for not having been careful, and said that he was having a hard time because his secret might be out. He acted like his relationship with me was really tipping him over the edge. He pushed me to delete the pictures I had taken with him and to delete my KakaoTalk account in case the reporters could get access to our messages. He got rid of all his pictures from my computer.

I couldn’t have been more naive though. I thought that my relationship with him was putting him in a tight spot and making things difficult for him. I felt like I was ruining his career, so I did everything he asked me to do—as if I owed it to him. Now that I think about it, that was Actor K getting rid of me one step at a time. Since the abortion, he had been slowly but steadily removing the traces of me from his life. After getting rid of the evidence that I existed in his life, he inevitably grew distant. Just as one would expect, he started spending less time with me. He asked that we take time apart to think things through. And one day, out of the blue, he broke up with me.

—Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

Actor K’s alleged ex-girlfriend concluded the revelation…

He seldom said anything good about his co-stars who helped him become the star he is now. He commented on the second lead actress’s appearance, saying she is ugly and old-fashioned. He badmouthed another actor, saying he has a terrible personality. He also said that he got hit on by most of the female co-stars he has worked with. He even named one popular actress and said that while she made a move on him, he turned her down because she is ugly. All in all, I have never seen him say anything good about anyone. And as most celebrities do, Actor K too had a reputation of being good to his fans. But in reality, instead of being thankful for the iPhone gift that he received from his fan, he said that he was scared that it may be tapped. He ended up trading it for some KBBQ with an older actor he hosts a program with. He doesn’t ever appreciate the flowers or the other gifts he receives. He threw away the fan letters without reading them. And he was never moved by any of it.

Actor K used to be someone who knew how to thank others for helping him. But after rising to fame and seeing the money in his bank account, he changed. He found me to be a threat to his money and he started to push me away. We stopped spending time together after he said he was worried about possible rumors and the penalties they would inflict. He also said that I don’t deserve to call him so often because I’ve been bad, so I could only call him once a month. In the meantime, he got busy shopping and moving to a bigger place with the money he made from the commercials. He really made me see how fame can really change a person.

I thought of him as family and always hoped for the best for him. When he became busy, I tried to work around his schedule. I would wait and wait for him, not knowing when he would come home. I couldn’t go see any of my friends because I had to stay home for him and whenever he came over, I had to cover all the windows. I was always on standby, like some Agent 007… though I only got to see him once a week or so. I kept putting myself through this for months because I had faith in our future.

Once he got some spotlight for making a scene on some program. He yelled and people found that so shocking. But when I saw it, I laughed because I know him and I know that to be his true personality. Of course, there were times when he was kind and good-natured. I fell in love with that person. But the closer we got, the more he changed. He turned out to be a huge gossip who likes to talk behind people’s backs and is completely self-centered. 

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

…reiterating the fact that he is not who he seems.

After a month of torturing me with false hope starting in April 2021, he called at 3AM one night in May. He said, ‘You’re not recording this, right? You’re not going to use this to threaten me later? You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met. I hope you stay true to that for a long time. But I don’t want you to wait for me because I’m going to see other people. I’m losing interest in you because it feels like you’re trying to tie me down.’ He got upset that I used a matching smiley face with him, though he doesn’t technically own that emoji. He said that he didn’t like how I was trying to make it seem like I’m still in a relationship with him.

When I cried, asking how he could try to end things with me over a simple phone call when we’ve been through so much together, he gave me some excuses about the paparazzi having eyes on him. He said we couldn’t meet up for the last time because we could get caught and that would be detrimental to his popularity and possibly even cause him financial loss. That’s the last phone call I had with him.

When we lost the baby, we adopted a puppy and named it after a combination of our names. He told me, in the driest manner ever, to take full responsibility for the dog. And that was the end. Without offering a sincere apology about the abortion he forced on me or giving me a chance to talk about it with him, he broke up with me—still threatening me and convincing me that it’s my fault. 

What disgusted me, even more, is that I noticed on the day after our breakup, he had gone to the department store with his friend (oh, how he loves shopping and luxury items) and signed an autograph for a fan he met there. The fan posted the autograph online, which I came across. He had JUST left the woman he promised a future with, someone who carried and lost his baby, someone who can never have children again because of him. That’s when I realized Actor K is not even human. He doesn’t have basic decency or manners.

I’ve had to relocate and pay the lease termination penalty, change my license plate number, and basically alter everything so I could be with him. I made so many sacrifices from start to finish, all because he had been so scared of the reporters. He said he was sorry that I had to move because of him and that he would come over, but he never came to see the new house. I hope he ends up regretting the decision to dispose of me and the puppy because he was too scared to lose his endorsements. 

I’m posting this because without sharing this all, I don’t think I could go on with my life—living in the shadow of the pain that he caused me. Thank you for reading.

— Actor K’s Alleged Ex-Girlfriend

While there is no concrete evidence to identify Actor K, Korean media outlets have singled out actor Kim Seon Ho to be the accused in question. In fact, shortly after the revelation took over the internet, the reporter-YouTuber Lee Jin Ho—well known for his equally shocking revelations about the entertainment industry—released a video directly naming Kim Seon Ho as Actor K.

Reporter Lee Jin Ho | 연예뒤통령이진호/YouTube

The ‘Actor K’ in question who forced his ex-girlfriend to get an abortion is, indeed, Kim Seon Ho…

In fact, Korean media outlets have known about this since September. They received some information about Kim Seon Ho facing problems with an ex-girlfriend and have been looking into it since. The new revelation matches the information that already circulated among reporters, so I decided to put his name on the table.

I can also tell you that his agency has actually long been aware of this scandal with his ex-girlfriend.

— Reporter Lee Jin Ho

Kim Seon Ho has since seemingly lost a few endorsement deals…

A now-deleted Domino’s Pizza post featuring models Shin Dong Yeop and Kim Seon Ho. | @dominostory/Instagram

…as brands like 11Street and Domino’s Pizza have almost immediately removed the actor from their websites and/or social media platforms.

A screenshot of Domino’s Pizza Korea’s Instagram feed with Kim Seon Ho removed. | @dominostory/Instagram

Neither actor Kim Seon Ho, nor his agency SALT Entertainment have made any official response to the revelation and the growing speculation around the accusations made in the revelation.

Actor Kim Seon Ho | @salt_ent/Instagram
Source: Nate Pann, Insight and YouTube

Actor Kim Seon Ho's Scandal