A 26-year-old actress was found dead on Saturday in Seoul, South Korea, the latest loss of a young artist in the country’s entertainment industry, who faced a judgment about the weight of mental health on her glamorous stars.
The death of actress Song Yoo-jung, who appeared in several television dramas, was confirmed in a statement from the company that represented her, Sublime Artist Agency. The agency did not disclose the cause, but Song’s sudden death brought to mind the series of suicides that have plagued Korean pop music in recent years.
Alarms have already been raised about the pressures imposed by South Korean management companies on young artists, many of whom are prepared from teenagers to be pop idols. Their appearance is closely examined, and their heavily choreographed lives are often streamed on social media platforms that expose them to flattering fan letters and hateful comments.
For many, their time in the limelight is limited if they reach star status. Around the age of 20, some are considered replaceable.
A series of K-pop stars who took their own lives talked about struggles with their mental health and the number of victims of cyberbullying. Ms. Song, a promising actress, did not publicly mention these issues.
Ms. Song started her acting career at age 20 and appeared in commercials for skin care products Estée Lauder and the Baskin-Robbins ice cream chain. In her decisive role in 2019, Ms. Song played a young architecture student with a pixie cut, in search of her soul mate, in a web series called “Dear My Name”. She also acted in music videos.
She was an advocate for people with disabilities, serving as ambassador for a South Korean group called Warm Accompaniment.
Song’s agency called her “a great actress who acted with passion”. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The problem of suicide in South Korea is not restricted to the entertainment industry. The country has the highest suicide rate among the 37 developed nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
But celebrity suicides, involving actors and others, have been a constant presence in the South Korean media for the past decade or more. In recent years, attention has fallen more sharply on deaths in the K-pop industry, one of the country’s most successful cultural exports.
In 2017, a singer, Kim Jong-hyun, killed himself at age 27 after leaving a note saying he had suffered a depression.
In 2019, Sulli, a 25-year-old K-pop star, took her own life after complaining about the relentless cyberbullying she faced when she joined a feminist campaign that advocated not wearing bras.
About six weeks later, her friend Goo Hara, 28, also killed herself, leaving a handwritten note about her despair.
Ms. Goo tried to reason with online critics, asking them to refrain from malicious comments.
“Public artists like me don’t have an easy life – we have our private lives more scrutinized than anyone else and we suffer the kind of pain that we can’t even discuss with our family and friends,” she wrote.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional features.