Jeon Hyun-moo. [Newsis]
Jeon Hyun-moo. [Newsis]

Controversy over the staging of broadcaster Jeon Hyun-moo's trip to Kazakhstan on MBC's "I Live Alone" shows no sign of dying down.

On Saturday, the YouTube channel "Yeonye Dwittongyeong Yi Jin-ho" addressed Jeon's trip to Almaty, Kazakhstan, saying no sponsorship was received from Almaty and that the journey was genuinely unplanned.

The channel also claimed there was directorial involvement, saying the production team had floated the idea of an "impromptu trip" about a week beforehand and that Kazakhstan was then selected as the destination. The moment in which Jeon appeared to book a flight on the spot after spotting a departure board was described as staged.

YouTuber Yi Jin-ho said that if Jeon were traveling alone, booking a ticket on impulse would be plausible. "But a producer, writer, camera director and sound director all have to come along — how would they get tickets?" he said. "So of course the crew's tickets were prepared a week in advance. I'll leave it to viewers to decide whether to consider this manipulation or staging."

These are claims Yi made based on his own reporting. The "I Live Alone" production team has not confirmed that crew tickets were purchased a week early or that the airport ticketing scene was staged.

Even so, with the production team's earlier explanation now clashing with the new claims, viewer attention has zeroed in on one question: when exactly were the tickets bought?

Some viewers say that if ticket payment records or booking timestamps were made available, they would go a long way toward settling whether the show's depiction of a spur-of-the-moment destination choice holds up against allegations of advance planning.


min3654@heraldcorp.com