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K-pop, Mandopop, other Asian pop
LifestyleEntertainment

Sulli and Goo Hara grew up in the harsh K-pop limelight, with demanding fans and schedules and controlling labels. Is it to blame for their deaths?

  • K-pop stars are little more than commodities for labels that have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in them
  • Goo Hara and Sulli both faced online abuse and media coverage for not conforming to their idealised roles

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Before her death, Goo Hara spoke out about online fan abuse, controlling labels and unrealistic expectations of the K-pop industry.
Tribune News Service

By most measures, the young women weren’t exactly radical.

K-pop star Sulli didn’t like wearing bras. She found them constricting and felt more natural without one. She considered it her choice to appear in public without one if she felt like it.

Fellow South Korean singer Goo Hara defended herself against online harassment about having plastic surgery to correct a drooping eyelid, and against an ex-boyfriend’s threat to go public with explicit images of her. On social media, she wrote in Korean: “I need to speak up for myself, and say I have nothing to be ashamed of when I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
As two of the biggest stars of K-pop – the meticulously produced, highly choreographed South Korean cultural export with legions of fans around the world – they saw their every word and action broadcast and picked apart.
Goo Hara spoke out online about the harassment she had suffered.
Goo Hara spoke out online about the harassment she had suffered.

The women took their own lives within the span of a few weeks this autumn, according to police, after each had been at the centre of a maelstrom of media coverage and online commentary about their personal lives.

K-pop is reeling from a number of suspected suicides by beloved performers in recent years, as others in the industry are quitting or suspending their careers citing mental health struggles. Some had been subject to intense scrutiny and a harsh backlash for being young women who step outside the idealised roles circumscribed for them: those speaking their minds, expressing their sexuality, daring to even hint at being a feminist.

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