“The audacity to show his face on TV after everything he’s done…”
A viral theqoo The post has since revealed the deep and dark past of an award-winning actress.
The post, shared on January 21, 2025 (KST), highlighted the actress Byun Joong Hee (or Byeon Jung Hee) as someone who transitioned into acting after following a completely different career path for most of her life.
According to the post, Byun Joong Hee was a middle school biology teacher for 39 years before making her debut at the age of 65. Since then, he has taken on memorable supporting roles in popular K-Movies and K-Dramas such as Hidden face, Taxi driver, Light shopand the one currently on air The queen who crowns.
Her acting career has developed quite well. In fact, in 2023, at the “SBS Drama Awards 2023”, Byun Joong Hee took home the “Scene Stealer Award”.
But by sharing photos from her teaching days, the post ended up shedding light on the senior actress’ alleged disciplinary method towards her students: extreme corporal punishment.
Below the link shared by the post, a 2013 blog post from the Seoul Metropolitan Education Official Office, Byun Joong Hee is praised for being a “mother figure” to his male students.
Ms. Byun Joong Hee, who started teaching at Boin Middle School in 1976, has many “kids” and calls herself a “boy mom.” That’s because he spent 37 years teaching at an all-boys school. When she started, there were only three female teachers at the school. She sewed for her students at the time, as energetic and active middle school kids were constantly tearing their pants or losing buttons on their uniforms. The loving act of sewing continues today.
— Seoul Metropolitan Bureau of Education
In the comments, however, former students of the teacher-turned-actress have come forward since 2022 and denounced her for the sheer act of violence she allegedly committed against her so-called “children”.
There’s a story my husband tells me all the time. It’s about his trauma from school days. He said that in eighth grade, whenever he didn’t bring his supplies, his school teacher would slap him on both sides of the face so hard that his nose started bleeding. She wouldn’t stop even when her uniform shirt was soaked in blood. It broke his spirit and he never really healed… So he was really surprised to find out that she became an actress. Yes, in the past, physical violence was more commonly used as a form of discipline. But her? She couldn’t control her anger, even when my husband started bleeding from both nostrils. Looking at the other comments… Looks like I wasn’t the only one who got slapped. Like, wow. It’s definitely something else.
— Comment from Netizens
- “I especially remember her ordering me to bring her those fried octopus snacks before class started. I also remember him hitting the student a lot… Haha. I graduated in 1997.”
- “He beat us with a metal rod wrapped in black tape. A true teaching moment for everyone.”
- “I graduated from Boin Middle School in 2005. If I remember correctly, he taught biology. And man, he beat his students so much. The school itself, however, had problems with abusive teachers. As if all teachers have their choice of weapons. One of them was also a martial arts guy. However… I have never been beaten like I was at Boin Middle School. And I’m from the Marines. Even the military didn’t attack me like you did.”
The post garnered a lot of attention with hundreds of comments debating whether Byun Joong Hee should do it “be authorized to act”. Accusing her of shamelessly showing her face on television after traumatizing her students, K-Movie and K-Drama fans expressed concern and disappointment.
- “If these are true, I hope he can never act again. This is horrible.
- “I never thought she was so good at acting… So if all this is true, she should stay low-key and live out of the limelight.”
- “The audacity to show his face on TV after everything he’s done…”
- “So the reports of receiving corporal punishment from this woman did not emerge all at once. We’ve been talking about it for a while now. Yet he continued to behave… so blatantly shamelessly.
- “Is he out of his mind?! After doing what she did, did she make her acting debut? Truly???”
- “I wonder what it was like for them to compare him to the Marines and say he was worse…”
Amid growing criticism, Byun Joong Hee did not respond.
