Musical actor Choi Jung-won [Newsis]
Musical actor Choi Jung-won [Newsis]

Musical actor Choi Jung-won has revealed that she took the stage on the very day her mother died, honoring a promise her mother had made in life. She recalled holding back her grief through the entire performance before breaking down in tears backstage, crying, "Mom, I'm sorry."

According to Dong-A Ilbo, Choi appeared Monday on the tvN STORY program "Namgyeoseo Mwohage," a talk show about loss and remembrance, alongside actor Kim Seong-ryeong, where the two spoke about their late mothers. Choi said her mother passed away in 2024.

Her mother had been living with Parkinson's disease but remained mentally sharp, eating well and even playing games on her phone. One day, her mother complained that her phone was not working properly and asked for a new one. Choi personally got her a replacement and stayed to have dinner with her that evening.

Choi then left home for a regional performance. The following morning, she received a sudden call from her older brother with the news that their mother had died. The unexpected loss left her so shaken she could barely speak, she said.

The immediate concern was her scheduled performances. At the time, Choi was appearing in two musicals simultaneously — "Chicago" and "Hadestown." In 2024, she was playing Velma Kelly in "Chicago" and Hermes in "Hadestown," performing in both productions at once.

Choi first tried to find a replacement actor to cover for her. She was able to arrange a stand-in for one production, but no one was available for the other.

In that moment, she recalled something her mother had told her. "If there's a performance on the day I die, you do it," her mother used to say. "That's what I want to see before I go."

Choi took the stage as planned on the day her mother died. "Once I was up there, I felt completely calm," she said, looking back on that day. "I performed better than usual that day. I think I really pulled it off."

But the moment she stepped off the stage after the final curtain, all the emotions she had held back came flooding out. When her fellow cast members called out to her, Choi burst into tears, crying, "Mom, I'm sorry. Mom."


husn7@heraldcorp.com