Byeon Woo Seok and Kim Hye Yoon sweep Baeksang popularity vote, surpassing IU and Park Bo Gum with overwhelming support

Indian Express

03-05-2025

Lovely Runner star Byeon Woo Seok has reportedly won the popularity race at the 2025 Baeksang Awards. On May 2, the results for the highly anticipated fan-voted category were revealed. And despite When Life Gives You Tangerines being a global hit, Seok's Ryu Sun Jae stood out as the fan favourite. The actor has won with overwhelming support. Meanwhile, his co-star in the K-drama, Kim Hye Yoon, also outshone strong contenders like IU and Hyeri in the race and has become the winner in the female category of the popularity race. The result was declared on The Qoo and comes just days after the award show was marred with allegations of manipulated voting results and the use of automated systems to increase vote counts, especially in the popularity category.
Byeon Woo Seok and Kim Hye Yoon win the Baeksang popularity race
According to Kbizoom, Byeon Woo Seok garnered around 2.4 million votes, easily surpassing his top competition, Park Bo Gum, who received just 605,823 votes. Meanwhile, Kim Hye Yoon is leading the female category with nearly 7.9 million votes, while Hyeri held the second spot with 6,923,153 votes. The difference in their vote counts is huge, which, according to some K-netizens, is the highest in Baeksang history and, thus it is highly unlikely that the result will change during the award ceremony scheduled to take place on May 5.
Snowdrop star Jung Hae In came third with 180,165 votes. Lee Jun Hyuk ranked fourth with 105,072 votes, and Dex ranked fifth with 87,384 votes. In the female category, IU ranked third with 3,474,101 votes, Haewon ranked fourth with 40,209 votes, and Twenty Five Twenty One star Kim Tae Ri ranked fifth with 33,424 votes.
Byeon Woo Seok and Kim Hye Yoon starred in tvN's time-slip romantic comedy Lovely Runner that became one of the most-watched shows globally despite not being able to bag any major OTT platform in the beginning. The show broke several records on Viki. Later, Netflix bagged the deal and the show peaked once more. The K-drama premiered on April 8 and ran till May 28, 2024. The story follows a fictional boy band called Eclipse and its member, Ryu Sun Jae, whose tragic death after the entertainment industry completely wears him out leaves one of his biggest fans, Im Sol, devastated. Miraculously, time takes her back to Sun Jae's childhood, 15 years in the past. He was still struggling with his career choice after having to give up on swimming. Im Sol is determined to change his future and prevent his tragic fate. She travels back and forth between the present and the past. The show is directed by Kim Tae Yeob and Yoon Jong Ho.
Lovely Runner stars face strong competition with Netflix's newly released slice-of-life drama When Life Gives You Tangerines. The K-drama starring IU and Park Bo Gum focuses on a Jeju couple, Ae Sun and Gwan Sik, who dealt with life's sour moments since childhood and later found love and comfort in each other, deciding to face the tangerines being thrown at them together. Together, they battled life's hardships, stood by each other, raised a family, and ultimately got a satisfying end to their beautiful life story. Both Park Bo Gum and IU are also nominated for Best Actor male and female categories for the award night.