Lee Min-ho’s “When The Stars Gossip” Under Fire for Misogynistic & Weird Lines
At night on January 19, a topic titled “A line from ‘When The Stars Gossip’ today” was published on the Korean forum ‘theqoo’, drawing massive attention with over 57,000 views and 700 comments after less than 2 hours.
The topic attached screenshots from the latest episode of Lee Min-ho and Gong Hyo-jin’s K-drama, “When The Stars Gossip”, where the male lead (played by Lee Min-ho), said, “I’m an expert at having sex and getting (women pregnant).”
While the line was spoken in a conversation about lab rats, considering the fact that this character is a gynecologist, it drew controversial reactions.
In particular, many heavily criticized the lines of the male lead ever since episode one, and questioned if the writer even understand what a gynecologist does. Some also lamented about “When The Stars Gossip” being too obsessed with sex scenes and sex-related dialogues, claiming that this was the reason the series is flopping heavily in Korea (with its latest rating even dropped to an all-time low of 1.8% by episode 5).
Under the aforementioned topic, netizens have so far left comments such as, “What does the writer thing of obstetricians and gynecologists? Why is this career written to be sex-obsessed?”, “Wow, it’s so embarrassing to hear those lines”, “Oh man, there was a reason the ratings were low”, and “It’s to the point where the writer is begging the viewers to leave”.
Meanwhile, previously, a line from the first episode of “When The Stars Gossip” was accused of carrying a misogynistic message.
In particular, the main character works as an obstetrician and gynecologist, and was raised by aunties from a pub, thus assisting in birthing their babies.
When describing his background, this character said, “Attending classes and getting full marks for the SAT, enrolling in med school and seeing women’s uteruses every day, delivering babies on a daily basis. The auntie’s uterus was like alcohol, but also comforting. They were warm, and even if they were all wrinkled from smoking, the aunties’ breasts were very big and safe.”
Upon seeing this line, Korean netizens were flabbergasted, and a topic criticizing this has been published on the Korean forum “theqoo”, drawing over 82,000 views and 654 comments.
Below are some comments from Korean netizens:
- Is this sentiment still valid in 2025??
- I was surprised when I heard the lines too
- This line is not even from the 2010s, it’s more like the early 2000s. It’s so childish and outdated that I gave up after watching the first episode.
- From the beginning, I was surprised when they said something about the uterus and breasts???
- There is also a line where Lee Min-ho asks his aunts to bring him money in front of a bar, knowing that they go out to bars and earn money. He also asks them to pay if he drinks with a woman. It seems strange to see how he thinks about women and writes about them.
- This is just so annoying. Why on earth are they writing a drama that’s going to ruin our gender sensitivity in 2025?
