Bloodhounds turns 2: Kim Sae Ron lived in a Squid Game-like society, ‘was too scared to speak'; met Sulli and Go Hara's fate

Indian Express

6 hours ago

Five years ago, a Korean journalist who had reported on at least 30 Korean actors' suicides in his 30-year career said he dreads late-night phone calls, because it often means another star has died, fallen victim to the same intense 'blame game.' Most of the global audience, unaware of a DUI scandal that had blown wildly out of proportion overnight, tuned in for Bloodhounds episode 7, two years ago, only to find its lead female actor, Kim Sae Ron, completely wiped from the screen. She crashed her car into a transformer while driving drunk in Gangnam, Seoul. Netflix washed their hands clean, edited out her scenes, and claimed they were maintaining 'quality' for their audience by dropping her. 'We tried our best to minimise the actress' appearance to decrease the viewer's discomfort. We did our best to increase the quality of the drama while minimising her appearance,' said the director at the time.
Within next week, the brutal internet cancel culture had completely derailed the then-22-year-old's career she started building at the age of 9. Her private life became a public spectacle. Brands dropped her. She was quietly erased after one mistake, the internet refused to let her forget. Too scared to speak, too hated to heal, and too alone to fight back, Sae Ron went down the same dark road as Sulli and Goo Hara: young women cheered on the way up, and blamed on the way out.
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'I'm too scared to say anything about them,' Sae Ron said in court after being fined 200 million won ($139,000). Trembling, she expressed fear of the media and stressed that many of the articles circulating about her private life were untrue. She paid heavy compensation, legal fees, brand penalties, and cancellation costs, adding up to nearly 700 million won. Her agency cut ties. With no work and no money, she had to take part-time jobs, using a fake name, Kim Ah Im, just to get hired. But even there, she was hunted down. Influencers secretly clicked photos of her working at a café and floated them online, mocking her. Gossip YouTubers accused her of faking the café job to gain sympathy. She was dragged into a brutal media trial before the legal system even got a word in. Between the crash and her death, over 2,000 articles mocked her finances, tore into her for trying to smile or socialise, and painted her as a public disgrace. Her family believes those content creators had a direct hand in what happened to her.
Today, public sentiment might be shifting, but it's too late, just like it was for Sulli, who rebelled against the K-pop world and fell victim to cyberbullying. It took her death for people to finally see the truth. After humiliating stories about her private life, Sae Ron tried speaking out, with a picture of her cheek-to-cheek with Kim Soo Hyun. His agency denied dating rumours, and people accused her of trying to ride his fame. She was again raked over the coals online.
After Sulli and Goo Hara's deaths in 2019, lawmakers promised to act against online abuse. Nothing changed. Experts say celebrities like Kim live in a Squid Game society, where one wrong move gets you thrown out like trash, and everyone just moves on like you were never there. Oscar-winning film Parasite's actor, Lee Sun Kyun's death just months before was another stark reminder for the public to stop the witch hunt against Sae Ron, but the race for views, likes, and subscriptions still topped someone's life.
Also read: South Korean singer Goo Hara's death exposes pressures of K-pop stardom
Sae Ron made history as the youngest Korean artist to attend Cannes with A Brand New Life, at a time when South Korean A-listers struggled to grace the French Riviera carpet. Her roles in The Man from Nowhere and A Girl at My Door earned her national acclaim. She received a Baeksang nomination, the country's highest artist award, at a remarkably young age. But fame came with its own cruelty. Kim was bullied in school for her success. She walked home barefoot, had no friends show up at her birthday, and battled loneliness from the start. She was the sole breadwinner for her family, reportedly using all her earnings to support them, while her sisters failed to break into acting.
The day her car crashed into a transformer, it caused a blackout affecting 57 businesses. Her blood alcohol content was 0.2%, far above the legal limit. Kim posted a handwritten apology, saying she was working to compensate for the damage. She took her own life in March 2025. Investigators ruled out no foul play.