The Korean entertainment industry has a serious problem. Korean actor Cha In-ha was found dead, and he’s the third young Korean star to die in just seven weeks. Deadline had a statement on this tragic turn of events from his agency.
“We feel devastated to deliver such heartbreaking and unfortunate news. On December 3, actor Cha In Ha left our sides. We are truly heartbroken to deliver sad news to everyone who has sent lots of love and support to Cha In Ha until now. We are filled with grief at this news that is still hard to believe,” read the statement.
The cause of death has not been reported. The Fantagio statement added:
“We earnestly ask for rumors to not be spread and for speculative reports to not be released in order for his family, who is experiencing greater sadness more than anyone due to the sudden sad news, to send him away peacefully. As wished by his family, the funeral will be held privately.”
That whole “don’t speculate” boilerplate at the end usually turns out to mean that this was a death by suicide. This follows the suicides of K-Pop singers Goo Hara and Sulli and does point to the existence of a real problem in the Korean entertainment industry.
I don’t know what the root cause of this is, and it could be a combination of any number of things including industry pressure, corruption, inadequate mental health services… really any number of things. And it’s likely that all those things need to be addressed in some way. Hopefully someone does something so that we’re not reading another article like this every few weeks.