[YouTube channel 'Kim Ga-yeon and Lim Yo-hwan's Game Couple']
[YouTube channel 'Kim Ga-yeon and Lim Yo-hwan's Game Couple']

Actor Kim Ga-yeon, 54, who has waged a decade-long campaign against online trolls, revealed that she made a single exception — dropping charges against one person — and explained why.

A video titled "The reason Kim Ga-yeon, who never settles with trolls, withdrew her complaint against just one person (ft. Lim Yo-hwan)" was posted Friday on the YouTube channel "Kim Ga-yeon and Lim Yo-hwan's Game Couple."

Kim has long suffered from malicious online comments and began filing complaints against trolls more than a decade ago. She has taken legal action against nearly 100 people, earning her the nickname "Queen of Lawsuits."

She said hateful comments directed at her daughter were what first pushed her to act. "As a mother, I was filled with rage — I thought, 'I really have to destroy them,'" she said.

Kim's standing rule was no settlement, regardless of the troll's age. But she said there was one person she chose to forgive, and she shared the story.

"The detective told me the suspect's parents really wanted to meet me in person," she said. "It was the first time parents had ever asked to meet. I felt like I had to go." She went to the police station.

"One of the two parents came in on crutches. Then a middle school student walked in behind them, looking absolutely terrified. I thought to myself, 'This kid is the one who posted those comments?'" she said.

The student, it turned out, had not posted the comments entirely of his own free will. Kim explained that there was a website popular among boys at the time, and students who did not participate risked being ostracized at school. The site was anonymous but displayed rank badges — the more posts or comments a user made, the higher their rank climbed. The student was the top academic performer in his school and had joined the site to avoid being bullied. Unable to bring himself to write original posts, he had copied and reposted others' content as a stopgap. "Out of all those posts, he happened to get caught because of me," she said.

"He was speaking in a trembling voice — it wasn't an act," Kim said. "I never drop charges, but after hearing his story, I understood why he had no choice." That, she said, was why she withdrew the complaint.

Even after dropping the charges, Kim said she kept the story private for several years to protect the student.

"He's probably old enough to have graduated from university by now," she said. "I believe he's living a good life — one I won't regret having given him a chance."

Kim married in 1995 and has an elder daughter, now 30, from that marriage, which ended in divorce in 1998. She later married professional gamer Lim Yo-hwan, 46, eight years her junior, in 2011, and the couple have a younger daughter, now 11.


paq@heraldcorp.com