Actor Park Jin-hee. [Yonhap]
Actor Park Jin-hee. [Yonhap]

As YouTuber Park Wi faces backlash over his decision to release CCTV footage of a fall he suffered on a KTX train, attention has turned to actor Park Jin-hee, who has effectively halted her SNS activity since the controversy erupted. The episode has revived a well-known story about how Park Wi's father, producer Park Chan-hong, took Park Jin-hee in as his adoptive daughter.

In August 2020, Park Wi uploaded a video to his YouTube channel "Wiracle" titled "I'll finally reveal this — she's my real older sister… [Wiracle Taxi]," introducing his connection with Park Jin-hee.

In the video, Park Jin-hee rode in a car driven by Park Wi and the two talked at length.

Park Jin-hee told him, "Please take me to your father's home — I need to pay my respects to him (Producer Park Chan-hong)."

Park Wi asked why she called his father "Father," to which Park Jin-hee replied, "Because I'm your older sister."

Reflecting on how she came to know the producer, Park Jin-hee said, "My father passed away when I was young, and when I started working at 20, seeing him made me think for the first time, 'How wonderful it would have been if a person like him had been my father.'"

Park Jin-hee first met the producer through the 2001 drama series "Bidanhyang Kkotmu."

"I asked him if I could call him Father, and he said, 'Of course — you're my daughter,' and welcomed me warmly," she said, adding that he gave a speech as her father at her wedding.

She went on to say, "Since Wi and Jiu (Park Wi's younger sibling) are his children, I think of the two of them as my own younger siblings."

After the controversy over Park Wi's CCTV footage spread, however, Park Jin-hee uploaded a photo on Aug. 20 and has since effectively stopped posting on SNS. She had previously shared updates on her daily life roughly every other day.

Meanwhile, Park Wi posted footage on his YouTube channel on Aug. 21 showing him falling from a portable ramp while using a wheelchair at a KTX station, after the wheels of his chair caught on the foot of a social service worker assisting him. He said he released the footage to raise awareness about accident prevention and the need to improve accessibility, but the move drew criticism as excessive given that the worker had already apologized to him.

Park Wi subsequently deleted the video and apologized, saying he had not given enough thought to the worker's position. He has since faced a backlash, with his YouTube subscriber count dropping and a scheduled lecture being canceled.


yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com