[Sportschosun Lee Ji-hyun] Broadcaster Hong Seok-cheon candidly revealed that he had given his former lovers what he called “alimony.”
On the 6th, a video titled “Hong Seok-cheon, Jang Jin-hee [Salty Brother EP.152] Korea’s Top Two Gay Icons and the Gay President” was uploaded to the YouTube channel “Salty Brother Shin Dong-yup.”
That day, Shin Dong-yup joked to Hong Seok-cheon, “You gave a lot of money to your foreign boyfriends,” and Hong Seok-cheon replied, “Be quiet. I got taken advantage of a lot,” drawing laughter. When Shin Dong-yup said, “Then you can just think of it as alimony,” Hong Seok-cheon agreed, saying, “Alimony.”
Shin Dong-yup then joked, “Even after breaking up, if they said they were having a hard time, you gave them money and even opened businesses for them,” and Hong Seok-cheon laughed awkwardly, saying, “Be quiet.”
Hong Seok-cheon then spoke honestly about his views on relationships. “It wasn’t so much that I kept getting taken advantage of after we broke up,” he said. “It was a time when I made some of the most beautiful memories of my life. Being Hong Seok-cheon’s partner must have been an extremely heavy and difficult role for them.”
He added, “I was so grateful that they endured that role for two or three years and spent happy times with me. If they wanted to leave because their love had faded, they could leave. But out of gratitude for the time we shared, I took care of anything they wanted.”
Meanwhile, Hong Seok-cheon also spoke candidly about how his life changed after coming out. “In the past, I even wondered, ‘Why did I have to become the face of the LGBTQ community?’ I got a lot of criticism because people wanted a handsome, cool celebrity to do it instead,” he recalled.
But over time, his feelings changed completely. “These days, when younger people in their teens and 20s meet me, they run up to me crying and say, ‘I’m alive because of you,’” Hong Seok-cheon confessed. “Every time I hear that, I feel that my coming out and my life were not in vain.” He added, “There are hard and exhausting times, but when I hear those words, I realize the time I endured had meaning.”
olzllovely@sportschosun.com
