Singer Yoo Yeol candidly shared his battle with pulmonary fibrosis, during which he even endured fake news and rumors of his death.
Yesterday, on the 24th, MBN 'Kim Juha's Day & Night' featured Yoo Yeol as a grants, and he personally recounted the seven years of fighting the disease after his pulmonary fibrosis diagnosis and the process leading up to a lung transplant surgery. This broadcast was the first update Yoo Yeol shared since his lung transplant and marked his return after a long hiatus.
Kim Juha cautiously mentioned, "Many false articles poured out, and rumors of death even circulated." In response, Yoo Yeol calmly said, "I wasn't actually that surprised," and "People around me got angrier, so eventually that article was taken down."
Yoo Yeol continued activities for a while while battling the illness, but he said he eventually let go of everything at his wife's strong urging. He recalled, "My wife was the first to notice that my body was being pushed too hard," and "I wrapped up musicals and broadcasting and went to Jeju Island to live for a year." He added, "Someone lent us a 100-year-old stone house. The time spent there felt like a dream."
He also revealed various treatments he tried during his battle. Yoo Yeol said, "I thought I'd try everything said to be good for the lungs," and "I went for months to places where they put more than 200 acupuncture needles front and back." He added, "There were people who said to treat it with food: boil soft-shelled turtle, eat quail, and make tomato kimchi," and recalled with an ironic laugh, "My wife couldn't come out of the kitchen."
But his condition gradually worsened. Recalling when he was rushed to the emergency room with the flu, Yoo Yeol confessed, "I couldn't get out of bed. I completely collapsed." He went on, "The doctor told my wife, 'Prepare your heart.' It was essentially a death sentence," recounting the dire situation at the time.
Then, miraculously, a lung transplant became possible, and after regaining weight Yoo Yeol was able to undergo the surgery. He bowed his head and said, "Thanks to the prayers and support of many people, I am sitting here now."
Meanwhile, Yoo Yeol was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2017 and endured a prolonged battle. It is a rare disease in which lung tissue hardens and respiratory function rapidly declines, and because there is no cure, treatment depends on symptom relief. As the disease worsened, his weight dropped to the 40-kilogram range, and at one point rumors of his death circulated. After a lung transplant in 2024 he devoted himself to recovery, and through this broadcast he appeared before the public for the first time in a long while.<
[Photo] MBN 'Kim Juha's Day & Night' broadcast screen capture
[OSEN]