[Sportschosun Jo Min-jung] Actress Ha Young, who was hit by controversy over her great-grandfather's pro-Japanese activities, has gained more than 200,000 followers on social media in a little over a week. Along with public attention, support and sympathy also appear to be flowing toward Ha Young, who even halted promotion for her project because of the scandal.
As of the morning of the 19th, Ha Young's social media account had 1.245 million followers. That means more than 200,000 new users joined in just a few days after the account surpassed 1 million last week.
It is difficult to pinpoint a single reason for the sharp increase. With the recent controversy surrounding Ha Young and the success of her latest work both driving up search volume and public interest, many users are likely to have visited her account out of simple curiosity.
Still, the steep rise suggests that sympathy and support for Ha Young may also have played a role. Some people have said it is excessive to hold her fully responsible for her great-grandfather's past, while others appear to have followed her account because they wanted to see how she would respond after apologizing directly without avoiding the issue. Her decision to cancel scheduled promotional interviews and scale back her activities also seems to have encouraged quiet support.
The popularity of the Netflix series "Our Sticky Love," in which Ha Young stars alongside Jung Hae-in, also helped drive the increase in followers. According to Netflix's official tally, the series recorded 7.5 million views and 88 million viewing hours from the 10th to the 16th, ranking No. 1 in the non-English TV category.
Despite the risk surrounding the actress, interest in the series has not slowed much. Viewers at home and abroad who discovered Ha Young through "Our Sticky Love" have visited her social media, and many others have also joined in to show support after the family-history controversy.
The controversy began after Ha Young introduced her family background on the KBS2 program "Problem Child in House," which aired on the 7th, saying, "Our family has been doctors for four generations, from my great-grandfather to my older sister." Ha Young proudly mentioned that her great-grandfather opened the first Western-style clinic in Hanyang and treated Emperor Gojong of Korea. It later emerged that her great-grandfather was a doctor named Ahn Sang-ho, and records showed that Ahn's name appeared on the list of council members for the Daejung Friendship Association, which was classified as a pro-Japanese organization in 1916. Her agency initially denied the pro-Japanese allegations as "groundless," but admitted the existence of the records and apologized a day later. As the controversy continued, online users began tracing the family tree of the medical family Ha Young had mentioned on the show, including her grandfather and father. Claims also surfaced about how Ahn accumulated his wealth and whether pro-Japanese assets could be recovered. Writer So Jae-won publicly criticized Ha Young, urging her to visit Sorokdo and confront the painful history of Japanese colonial rule directly.
In the end, Ha Young bowed her head in a handwritten apology on the 12th, saying, "I only knew a fragment of my great-grandfather's life from stories passed down through my family." She added, "I shamefully spoke about it as if it were something to be proud of, without understanding it properly." She went on to say, "I deeply accept my wrongdoing and sincerely apologize as a descendant."
Although the controversy has halted the planned promotional schedule for the project, "Our Sticky Love" continues to perform strongly worldwide. With her follower count now exceeding 1.24 million, attention is focused on what Ha Young will do next amid heightened interest and ongoing criticism.
Jo Min-jung mj.cho@sportschosun.com
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
