THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Seoul agog at K-pop star versus the bar girls

Seoul agog at K-pop star versus the bar girls

Anytime Thai show business is having a scandal drought, we can always flip the page to South Korea.

ANYTIME THAI show business is having a scandal drought, we can always flip the page to South Korea. And the latest burning headlines there are pretty wild, relating to sexual-assault charges being brought against singer-actor Park Yoo-chun from the K-pop group JYJ.
Park, 30, has most recently co-starred in the TV soaps “Rooftop Prince” and “The Girl Who Sees Smells”. He’s good-looking – as of course is everyone in K-pop – but possibly getting a little out of hand. The guy’s actually been doing his mandatory conscription duty since last August, and choose to be a cop rather than a soldier, but June 4 was his birthday, so he was out on the town.
On June 10 a woman filed a sex-assault complaint against Park, saying he’d had his rough way with her amid the birthday festivities, in the toilet of the adult-entertainment venue where she worked. She even provided police with a pair of panties bearing “evidence”. 
The cops indeed found male DNA on the underwear, but before they could figure out who the DNA belonged to, the alleged victim withdrew her complaint, saying there’d been “no coercion during sexual intercourse with Park”.
That was June 15, and the pop star might have been off the hook except that three other women promptly came forward with similar accusations against him. The second charge was filed on June 16 and two more the next day. All three women work in the same nightspot where the original accuser was employed and all cited the toilet as the scene of the crime, but the alleged incidents took place between 2014 and late last year.
By this stage Park might have been thinking about getting in touch with Bill Cosby’s lawyer, but whoever his lawyer is right now advised the old stand-by defence of filing counter suit. That’s what happened on Monday – naming the first accuser, who’d already withdrawn her complaint! Park is accusing her of blackmail, as well as making a false statement. He says she demanded a billion won (Bt3 million) from his employer, C-JeS Entertainment, but didn’t get it, so she went to the cops.
Park also has his fan club pulling for him. They keep records of his every bowel movement and can tell you where he was at any given time for the last, uh, 30 years. So they’re contradicting Alleged Victims 3 and 4 by pointing out that Park was in China on the dates they named. Unfortunately for him, he was indeed in Seoul the other times. 
Whatever the verdict, Park’s future in showbiz is probably doomed. Beloved Thai stars can make amends for wrongdoings with a “heartfelt” apology and are allowed to resume their careers, but Koreans are not so forgiving. It’s a good thing they have a bottomless supply of celebrities.
 
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