Kim Jae-won, the longest-serving male MC of KBS "Morning Yard," said all the hundreds-of-millions-of-won rumors surrounding him are false.
On the 315th episode of tvN's variety show "You Quiz on the Block" (hereafter You Quiz) that aired on the 22nd, Kim Jae-won appeared as a guest. Joining KBS in 1995 as part of the 21st class of open recruitment, Kim led Morning Yard for 12 years and hosted 3,300 live broadcasts. He left KBS after 30 years and 6 months of service and stepped down from the Morning Yard MC role in July.
Kim Jae-won said, "I was thinking of retiring at the mandatory retirement age, but many juniors told me, 'You'll end up broadcasting anyway after you leave, so isn't it better to go out while you're even a year younger?' I said, 'I still need a rationale to leave—how could I suddenly go? If a voluntary retirement program opens, I'll go,' and two days later it opened. So I came out into the world early," adding, "Ordinarily, I would have quit next year."
When Cho Sae-ho said, "In a way, isn't this a freelance declaration?" Kim replied, "It's not a freelance declaration—it's quitting, retiring, the feeling of being unemployed," denying the label of a "freelance declaration."
Yoo Jae-seok asked, "I heard there's a difference in severance pay between filling one more year and not— is that right?" Kim Jae-won said, "There were news reports saying I got 2.5 billion won in severance, 3 billion won, or no, that person doesn't need severance pay. He's already worth over 3 billion won, he opened a cafe on Udo in Jeju, and that the cafe is a huge hit and Morning Yard viewers even hold gatherings there. I was flustered."
He continued, "I don't know where to start or how to explain it, but I'm not running a cafe," and said, "It would be nice to have 30 billion won, but I received an appropriate severance that a regular office worker would get, an advance on a few months' salary." He also said he separately received 800,000 won as consolation money.
He said, "In reality, I'm a livelihood-driven sole proprietor," and added, "If a place that needs me calls, I run there no matter what." Yoo Jae-seok defined it as "This is the life of a freelancer."