On March 31, Kim Soo Hyun held an emergency press conference at the Stanford Hotel in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, where he stated, “I dated the deceased for about one year.”
The first dating rumor between Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Sae Ron emerged during the airing of “Queen of Tears“, when Kim Sae Ron uploaded and then deleted a photo of herself cheek-to-cheek with Kim Soo Hyun. At the time, Kim Soo Hyun’s side responded, “The dating rumor is groundless. We cannot understand Kim Sae Ron’s intentions behind this behavior.” Kim Sae Ron’s side did not make a public statement.
Referring to this incident, Kim Soo Hyun said, “The late Kim Sae Ron and I dated about five years ago, around four years before ‘Queen of Tears’ aired, for about one year. But when the dating rumor surfaced, I denied the relationship.” He also maintained that the allegations of dating during her underage years were “not true”.
Kim Soo Hyun additionally claimed that the KakaoTalk messages presented by the bereaved family were manipulated, stating, “We will thoroughly verify all the so-called evidence through proper investigative procedures.”
This stance contrasts sharply with the contents of a letter titled “The Letter Kim Sae Ron Couldn’t Send”, which the bereaved family publicly shared during the emergency press conference on March 27. According to the family, they had attempted to deliver the letter through a friend, but were unable to access Kim Soo Hyun’s apartment complex.
In the letter, Kim Sae Ron wrote, “We were together for about 5~6 years. You were my first love and also my last, so I hope you won’t avoid me. Seeing you avoid me and pretend I don’t exist makes all that time feel meaningless and empty.”
Currently, Kim Soo Hyun asserts that they dated for one year only after Kim Sae Ron became an adult, while the bereaved family insists that the relationship began when she was still a minor. Public attention is now focused on which side’s claim will be proven true.
Meanwhile, Kim Soo Hyun’s side has filed a lawsuit against the bereaved family, a woman claiming to be Kim Sae Ron’s aunt and the operator of the YouTube channel Garosero Institute, citing violations of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection and defamation. They have also filed a damages claim amounting to 12 billion KRW. On the other hand, Kim Sae Ron’s side has already filed a stalking complaint against YouTuber Lee Jin Ho and is reportedly considering legal action against Kim Soo Hyun.