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March 20, 2024
Squid Game Actor Charged for Sexual Harassment
O Yeong-su was given a guilty verdict on 15 March 2024. His decision to appeal the verdict will need to be made within seven days. By Ching Wai.
South Korea - Squid Game actor O Yeong-su was convicted last Friday, 15 March, on charges of sexual harassment. The Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Court found him guilty in 2017 of inappropriately hugging an unnamed actress, holding her hand, and kissing her cheek across multiple incidents. Prosecutors had also alleged he laid in a room the actress rented and made lewd sexual comments to her. He received an eight-month prison sentence that will be suspended for two years, and 40 hours of classes on sexual violence. O has plans to appeal the guilty verdict. However, the ruling will stand should he fail to do so within seven days (by 22 March).
The 79 year old was initially charged in 2017, but was not indicted until 2022. That was the same year O won a Golden Globe award for his role in Squid Game. Outside of the Netflix series, O is one of South Korea’s most accomplished stage actors, having done more than 200 plays. According to South Korean law, O will be a registered sex offender who can be monitored by the police after the prison sentence. Since being indicted, he had been dropped by advertisements, promotions and projects, including Squid Game.
O is not the only actor of the Squid Game series to have landed in controversy. Lee Jung Jae, the star of season one, has multiple DUIs and two different assault cases. He was also accused of being homophobic when an excerpt from a past interview resurfaced. Announcement of controversial actors Lee Byung Hun, T.O.P and Oh Dal Su for Squid Game’s season two garnered strong backlash. In 2009, Lee’s ex-girlfriend accused him of tricking her into a sexual relationship based on the promise of marriage. Her further allegations of him being a chronic gambler were cleared in court.
Additionally, Lee was involved in a blackmailing scandal involving GLAM’s Dahee and model Lee Ji Yeon while his wife was pregnant. Lee also owed hundreds of millions of won in back taxes, revealed early last year. T.O.P smoked marijuana with ex-trainee Han Seo Hee, and later received a suspended sentence of ten months in prison and two years probation. Oh admitted to the sexual harassment allegations made in 2018, and issued an apology. Many dramas dropped him, or were postponed indefinitely. With all the controversy surrounding the actors of the otherwise successful Netflix series, the performance of the second season of Squid Game remains to be seen.
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