Hello, this is Park Hye Soo.
It took me a long time to post these words. I’m sorry that it came to this and that it took so long. I went around in circles writing, erasing, and repeating. Because it was not true, I believed that it all would pass, but lies kept breeding more lies until it had piled up like a mountain, growing ever taller. I suffered as I watched two photographs that were unrelated to the truth being presented as “confirmation,” and these false claims kept creating a wall of judgment that would be difficult for me to take down.
I know that a lot of people were waiting for me to personally share my side of the story. But the reason that I couldn’t do that for so long was because I believed my words would have no effect against this wall of judgment that had already grown so large. Even though evidence has been presented to back up my words, people would not accept the truth as truth, so I have decided to share this post.
I have already experienced once before in the past what it is like to have people judge you because of false rumors. Therefore, I know how difficult it is to refute each one of the countless lies that come out of people’s mouths.
In 2008, when I was in the second year of middle school, I studied abroad in the United States as an exchange student for a while before returning to Korea. When I came back to Korea, we’d moved out of our original neighborhood, and in July 2009 I enrolled in my second year of middle school again at a new and unfamiliar school. I knew no one else at the school and frightening things began to happen to me that I’d never experienced before.
I had moved schools from Gangbuk, I was a year older than my classmates, and I had studied abroad in the United States, but malicious and false rumors began to attach themselves to these “truths” and spread about me like wildfire. People spread rumors that I’d gone to the United States for an abortion or that I hadn’t gotten to the U.S. at all but had been held back for bad behavior in my old neighborhood, and these lies began to follow me around as if they were true. Even though I only shared my phone number with two or three people, they spread it around so that every morning I would wake up to texts with severe curse words and sexual harassment. I remember checking my phone with my heart racing as soon as I woke up, and crying silently so that my parents wouldn’t hear me.
This was a severe shock to me, who had been an ordinary student loved by friends and teachers at my old school. About a week before I went to the United States, even though it was not a school day, my homeroom teacher and my classmates held a surprise farewell party for me. I was so happy and took photos with my friends and blew out the candles on a cake. I suffered while wondering how someone who had been so happy at school could come to a new neighborhood and be subjected to this treatment, and not knowing who to blame. It was really difficult to endure bullying that was happening for no reason I could explain, but I also couldn’t speak to my parents about it, who had been firm about moving for the sake of my education. I couldn’t speak to anyone about it and suffered alone.
The bullying grew worse and worse. I would be eating lunch when someone would flip over my tray and I’d get stains on my uniform. I’d walk down the hall and someone would shove me or curse at me behind my back. I’d get called out to the third years’ hallway and be told that it was “just because I don’t like the look of you.’ I’d get hit on the head while many students watched and be told, “I just want to hit you. Even if you were in your third year, I’d hit you.”
However, the reason that I could endure even in that situation was because there were several warm friends who reached out to me despite the fact that I was being bullied. Even though there were all these rumors and judgments about me, these friends saw me and liked me for who I was. Because of them, my school life improved little by little. Nonetheless, I was deeply hurt by the bullying and went to psychological counseling for three years. Regular counseling helped me get over these scars, and I was able to set my head straight after hating myself and turning all my bitterness toward the bullies against myself for so long.
The person who is calling themselves a victim now is the same person who flipped over my lunch tray and cursed at me when I first transferred schools. After those incidents, we became closer during our third year of middle school. During the time that we were friends, and even up until this year, although we had stopped keeping in touch with each other, that person considered everything that happened between us to be part of childhood friendship. Although the situation has gone as far as this and there is no longer any choice but to take this to the law, it pains me deeply to think of how it’s turned out between me and someone who was at least once my friend.
That person’s friends have come to my Instagram account and commented lies, spreading these lies even further. The anonymous posts going around online are from screenshots taken from these Instagram accounts. These stories whose position and source cannot be verified are spreading online as if they were all true.
I want to ask that person who keeps spreading unreliable, constantly-changing lies about me just to ruin me, first through Instagram comments and subsequently twice in interviews: Why did you have to go this far? What do you have to gain from this? Even if you’re acting like this out of hopes that I’ll break and fall apart, I won’t be shaken. Even if it takes months, the truth will be revealed.
Just like what I’ve said above, the “victim group chat” where dozens of people have allegedly gathered is based on lies. We are getting information about that group chat and who belongs to it now. At the moment, it feels pointless to give a detailed statement about all the false gossip spreading about me, so we will take action from now on without waiting or compromise.
Through this, I have come face-to-face with my younger self who had been hidden deep inside me, who had been badly hurt by rumors and bullying. If I hadn’t chosen a job that puts me in the public spotlight, it may have been that I would also have wanted to share these terrible and difficult memories with someone else. But I would like people to remember that false claims and the reckless criticism that follows is also an assault on someone else. I had concrete evidence of the past mistakes made by those who call themselves the victims, but I did not want to make them public because I believed that also to be a form of assault.
I am so, so sorry to KBS and all the staff, cast, and crew of ‘Dear.M,’ who have suffered harm because of me.
I am also deeply grateful to those who kept supporting me and cheering me on even though I wasn’t able to speak for a long time. Because of you, I was able to examine the situation clearly despite the pain and prepare carefully for what comes next. Even if it takes a long time, I believe that the truth will slowly, one by one, come to light, and all this will pass. I beg that in future, people will learn to see the truth for what it is. This was a very long post… Thank you for reading.
cr. Soompi
original post: here
1. Deleting posts, suing people, media play. There's a reason why the general public isn't buying any of it but seems like she doesn't know.. Now she's trying to get our emotions swayed by playing the victim. She probably has a reason why she didn't want to mention hitting anyone in her clarification. Why does she think that so many of her classmates came together against her?
2. And you took all this time? Did you wait until you could pay off a few people? What a disillusionment seriously. If this wasn't true, why haven't you felt more sorry for the Dear M audience and staffs and came out earlier? If it was really not true why didn't you just come out clarifying your side instead of threatening other people to sue them? Do you think we're fools?
3. Looks like since there are no evidence of bullying, she will hold it until the end, her mentality is f*cking strongㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ She's so toxic
4. So if all this was true, then the teachers lied in her school certificate? The teachers from grade 1~3?
5. If it's going to be like this, then who is saying the truth? I bet it's advantageous for her to confuse people like that since Dear M is just around the corner and she had an excuse to come back too. She's using her head. However. if there are more post exposing her coming out in the future, what is she gonna do?
6. Hul Park Hyesoo is freaking pitifulㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠ She must've been depressed ㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
7. There are way too many victims out there, I hope she's able to refute them one by one. Then I'll be able to trust her. She's only making excuses for one person, how am I supposed to believe her?
8. She turned her parents into liars thenㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ I read this well
9. F*cking shameless
10. Don't only explain the middle school but also high school and university
11. No but what her parents acknowledged were lies?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅜㅜ She's going as far as making her mom and dad liars, what is she gonna do?
12. Who even believes this? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ damn..
13. ????????ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ There was no certificate of her even studying in the US and she went to such a weird place, so what is she calling rumors?? Is an underground in Gangnam now considered US broad school? There are so many homestays in Gangnam I bet some of the homestays are owned by Americansㅋㅋㅋㅋ
14. I feel like she probably has some kind of mental disease at this rate? She either has Reipley's syndrome or is severely manipulative
15. Does her graduation picture look like someone who was getting bullied... No but she looked like the leader of bullies... Everyone who attended her school knows about it though ㅋ
16. If this was really true, why did she have to wait this long to give her statement?
17. There are rumors about her bullying from middle school, high school all the way to university. She's only clarifying one of them and acting like things are so unfair for her
18. Nothing matches between her IG post and her graduation pictures and her student record, her posts saying the complete opposite
19. Dear M's actors and staffs are the only pitiful ones. I don't think we'll ever see the drama before the court decides. What a nuisance seriously
20. If she was really telling the truth why take all this time? It's been so long since the scandal broke.... And a student record doesn't lieㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
[theqoo] PARK HYESOO, FINALLY A STATEMENT ABOUT HER SIDE 'I WAS VICTIM OF MOCKING AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT DURING SCHOOL DAYS... THE VICTIMS WERE THE ONES WHO CURSED AT ME"
original post: here
1. I don't feel like she's lying
2. What I'm sensing is that she became friends with the people who tormented her and then started tormenting others
3. She's scary
4. The victims must be devastated now
5. So where are her so-called 'warm friends who reached out to her'? I didn't see a single one come out?
6. There are no 'friends' who warmly reached out to her during her bullying, just like there's nobody refuting she 'got bullied'
7. Ew
8. But this isn't her entire school days, what about her high school and her university? These were truly messy ones;
9. She's not gonna clarify what she did in university though?
10. Psychological counseling? Then why don't you show us your proof of counseling?
[theqoo] PARK HYESOO'S STUDENT RECORD VS PARK HYESOO'S IG
