Actor Seong Byung-sook said she went through hard times after her ex-husband's business failure left them with a 10 billion won debt.
On the afternoon of the 1st, voice actor-turned-actress Seong Byung-sook appeared on the KBS2 variety show Park Won-sook's Let's Live Together.
Seong Byung-sook said she was the only child in a family that valued children and that her first marriage was arranged by her uncle. She married three months after meeting her husband, but she said everything fell apart from the first day. "After returning from the honeymoon, I turned off all the lights, lit candles, arranged flowers and waited for my husband, but when he saw it he said, 'Are you kidding? Give me food.' He said, 'Turn the light on, you'll fall,'" she recalled the shocking past.
Seong Byung-sook said, "If only my father-in-law had been alive, I would have told him everything, and then he would have said, 'He has his faults, endure it, I'll straighten him out.' My father-in-law was like a million troops. He suddenly fell ill and passed away," adding, "At the funeral I cried the most. But when I cried like that, my aunt said to me, 'You cry so well because you're an actor.' That still stays in my heart," expressing the hurt she felt from her in-laws.
Two years after her first marriage ended in divorce, Seong Byung-sook said, "My daughter started kindergarten and came home crying so often. She would say, 'Other kids have dads but I don't. Make me a dad.' So I promised her. 'Don't worry, I'll get you one,' I said, and a friend who does musicals introduced someone so after a year of dating we liked each other and I married a businessman," adding, "At that time my husband's business was doing so well that it was a period of expansion. At first I lived like a queen, but overnight I became a maid and was driven out of a 70-pyeong apartment in Apgujeong-dong. In my life, 1997 is the dividing line: before was the first half and after was the second half," she confessed.
She went on, "I can't forget that time. The whole country became the IMF, and when the country went through a crisis I also experienced a war. It wasn't a tunnel but a cave. A tunnel at least has an entrance, but a cave keeps going and going underground," adding, "When the company went bankrupt my husband said, 'I'll take care of everything, don't worry. I'll have money in a month,' but it never came," she said, shocking listeners.
Asked, "How much was your husband's debt? Did you have to pay it yourself?" she replied, "The amount of the bankruptcy was 10 billion won. The creditors all came to me. I did live morning broadcasts, and of course the creditors knew where I was. They all came looking for me," adding, "I had also issued guarantees. If a husband runs a business, at least one person should be fine so you can do noodle vending or hotteok vending. I begged him not to have me guarantee, but I heard my husband took my seal and secretly stamped it," she confessed about her turbulent life.
[Photo] 'Park Won-sook's Let's Live Together' broadcast screen capture
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