K-drama fans would be familiar with Han So Hee. The actress has constantly gone viral for many reasons — be it her iconic marker cap biting incident at Paris Fashion Week or her phenomenal acting in the Netflix K-drama series, My Name, the South Korean actress is certainly one to keep an eye on.
But what has shaken up the internet recently is her unfortunate timing of getting caught up in a love triangle between fellow actors Ryu Jun Yeol and Hyeri. TL;DR: Han So Hee announced that she was in a relationship with Ryu Jun Yeol, who recently broke up with his long-term girlfriend of eight years, Hyeri. But Hyeri revealed that their timelines had overlapped, which heavily implied that Ryu Jun Yeol had two-timed both girls.
For those who are keeping up with the actress’ K-dramas as well as her recent real life drama, here are 20 facts about Han So Hee to get you started on your internet deep diving.
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Han So Hee was born on 18 November 1994. While she goes by the stage name “Han” So Hee, the actress’ family name is actually “Lee”.
It has not been revealed why Han So Hee goes by “Han” — currently, her Naver blog username is “Lee So Hee”, a name that she has publicly used to refer to herself sometimes. With her carefree personality, I’m guessing that she doesn’t mind going by either name.
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Han So Hee’s parents divorced when she was just 5 years old, so she was brought up by her grandmother. She often posts about her grandmother on her Instagram page, with one particular sweet post captioning, “my everything”.
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For K-pop stans, Han So Hee may be a familiar face due to her appearance in multiple K-pop idols’ music videos. Her most recent feature was for BTS’ Jungkook’s music video “Seven”, where she played an ex-girlfriend that Jungkook was trying to get back together with.
Other notable mentions include SHINee’s “Tell Me What To Do” in 2016, Jung Yong-Hwa’s “That Girl” in 2017 and Roy Kim’s “The Hardest Part” in 2018.
Fun fact: Han So Hee majored in art at Ulsan High School of Arts. She used to run an art account with the username @Jjunk to showcase her unique artwork.
While the actress didn’t further pursue her studies in art, the nickname still stuck with her since then. Till today, Han So Hee’s fans fondly refer to her as “Junk Unni” in reminiscence of her old account.
With the actress’ overwhelming popularity in Korea and on an international scale, it seems as if Han So Hee has been acting for a long time. But in fact, Han So Hee made her acting debut with a minor role in Reunited Worlds in 2017.
In the K-drama, she played Lee Seo-Won, a fashion journalist and the daughter of a hospital director.
After graduating high school, Han So Hee’s passion for art remained strong. In an interview with Channel Fullmoon, she revealed that she had applied for a university in France and got accepted.
However, she needed to have at least KRW$60 million in her bank account in order to apply for a visa. Since she didn’t have such a large amount of money at that point of time, Han So Hee worked various part-time jobs at pubs, modelled and did commercials to save up.
It was by some stroke of luck that her current agency saw her commercial on a billboard and tried to cast her as an actress. Han So Hee was initially reluctant, even turning down the CEO three times before she eventually gave in and agreed to try.
She debuted as an actress at the age of 25, which was considered a “late” age in the Korean entertainment scene. But Han So Hee proved that age doesn’t matter, as within just a few years, she has now become a highly sought actress in the industry.
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Prior to becoming an actress, Han So Hee had multiple visible tattoos on her body. After she gained more recognition, netizens dug up old photos of her with tattoos and heavily criticised her, as tattoos are still considered taboo in Korea.
In order to fully commit herself into her acting career, Han So Hee removed all of her tattoos. Sharing in an interview for Gyeongseong Creature, “that was the beginning of my second life.”
But she also added, “I was reluctant to part with the tattoos; after all, I paid for it, didn’t I?”
We applaud Han So Hee for fully dedicating herself into a career that she didn’t expect to get into in the first place, and had to make sacrifices to her personal life for it.
It wasn’t until 2020 that Han So Hee had her big break in acting. She rose to popularity through the K-drama The World of the Married, where she played a main role as Yeo Da-Jyung, a young mistress.
The drama was awarded as one of the highest-rated TV series in South Korean cable TV history — it’s no wonder she became a familiar face to many locals so quickly. Through this drama, she was nominated for Best New Actress at the Baeksang Arts Awards 2020.
Image courtesy of Netflix
It’s not everyday that one finds a good friend at work, but Han So Hee managed to find hers when she worked with fellow actor Park Seo Joon in the K-drama, Gyeongseong Creature. Despite the initial awkwardness, the pair acted as lovers on the show and soon grew close to each other.
Both actors appeared on Channel Fullmoon together, where it was revealed that they even had the same blood type, AB, and MBTI, INFP. Who would’ve thought that they would find a work bestie while working on a project together?
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Apart from Park Seo Joon, Han So Hee has also worked with a couple of notable actors, one of them being Song Kang. The two starred in the Netflix K-drama series Nevertheless, which made it to the Top 10 Popular Streaming Shows on Netflix Korea.
Proving that she’s a dedicated actress through and through, Han So Hee revealed that she gained 10kg of muscle while preparing for the action K-drama, My Name. She played the protagonist Yoon Ji-Woo, who seeks revenge for her father’s death and works for a drug crime gang.
In order to really get into her role, Han So Hee even carried around a knife just to immerse herself into her character and feel more comfortable holding it.
During the press conference for the K-drama, Han So Hee also mentioned that she attended action school for two months to practise the stunts needed for the show. We stan a hardworking queen.
With her rising popularity and stunning looks, it’s no surprise that Han So Hee has been offered the role as a global brand ambassador for a number of luxury and fashion brands. These include Balenciaga, Charles & Keith, Omega SA, Fila and Boucheron.
Han So Hee was also the very first Korean model for Charlotte Tilbury Beauty, a British makeup brand.
Since her debut in 2017 till today, Han So Hee has amassed over 17.8 million followers on Instagram. She often updates about her life through posts and stories, and treats fans to glamorous selfies whenever she can.
In January 2024, Han So Hee attended Paris Fashion Week for Dior’s Spring Summer 24 collection. As it’s common for fans to wait outside the venue in hopes to get autographs or interactions with their idols, Han So Hee went viral for one move — biting on a marker cap while her hands were busy signing autographs.
Fans took to social media to express how alluring she looked while doing it so effortlessly, and the original video has since gained over 2.4 million views on Twitter.
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That’s not all — following her viral video, other Korean celebrities decided to follow her footsteps too. Fans saw Seventeen’s Mingyu and NCT’s Johnny replicate the iconic marker cap bite while they were at Paris Fashion Week, which led to fans speculating that it was inspired by Han So Hee.
Numerous K-pop idols, such as Red Velvet’s Irene and Aespa’s Winter, have also received requests from fans to do the same action. I guess you could say that Han So Hee became a trendsetter, even though it was unintentional.
Han So Hee also attended Paris Fashion Week as Boucheron’s global ambassador in March 2024. However, this time round, she got into a controversy when a clip of her yelling at her fans surfaced on the internet.
Not long after, her agency released a statement saying that the situation was misunderstood. When the video was filmed, Han So Hee was standing in a big crowd which soon became dangerous, yet nobody could listen to what the staff were saying due to the noise. Han So Hee then yelled at everyone to be quiet so as to look out for their safety, but the viral clip was cut to only show this part.
This goes to show that we shouldn’t believe everything that we read on the internet without knowing the full story first. We’re glad that the air got cleared for Han So Hee and she received support after the initial backlash.
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On 16 March 2024, Han So Hee announced that she is currently dating actor Ryu Jun Yeol. This came as a shock to many fans, as the pair met in November 2023 when Han So Hee was spotted attending his photo exhibition, and dating rumours had sparked then. However, both parties denied the relationship.
At that point of time, news reports stated that Ryu Jun Yeol had only just got out of an 8-year long relationship with actress and K-pop idol, Hyeri of Girl’s Day. Fans were then wondering if Han So Hee was being used as a rebound.
It seems like the cat is now out of the bag, as the couple were spotted on a date together in Hawaii. The two confirmed that they have been dating since the start of 2024.
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Since Ryu Jun Yeol was fresh out of a long-term relationship, things didn’t sit well with his ex-girlfriend, Hyeri. Before the pair confirmed their relationship, Hyeri posted a cryptic message, “it’s funny”, on her Instagram Story, seemingly indirecting the couple. She unfollowed Ryu Jun Yeol right after uploading.
Not one to back down, Han So Hee posted her own Instagram Story of her own to explain her situation, clarifying that she would never be a third party in someone’s relationship. She ended the post with “it’s funny for me too”, a jab back at Hyeri’s original accusation.
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Following Han So Hee’s Instagram Story and confirmation of her relationship, she received harsh criticism from the public. According to netizens, she wrote the Instagram Story as if Hyeri was simply overreacting to rumours, only to turn around and confess just a day later that she was in fact, dating Ryu Jun Yeol.
Han So Hee then took to her blog to write up the entire timeline of their relationship, stating that she thought the couple had broken up in June 2023, according to news sources at the time.
However, Hyeri also posted an apology letter on her own, revealing that while she and Ryu Jun Yeol were on a break last year, they were also in talks of getting back together. However, just four months later, she came across dating rumours of him and Han So Hee potentially dating, even when they haven’t officially broken up yet.
With this revelation, Han So Hee has since deleted the blog post, as well as every other blog post on her page.
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During this period of internet drama, Han So Hee and Ryu Jun Yeol were still on their date in Hawaii. According to sources, she was spotted being on her phone throughout the entire time the couple were out, presumably reading comments and releasing statements about their relationship.
Fans were angered as Ryu Jun Yeol remained silent the entire time, while both Han So Hee and Hyeri received the full brunt of hate comments from netizens.
Ryu Jun Yeol then arrived back in Korea alone on 17 March 2024, and seemingly hid from reporters behind a cap and mask.
Han So Hee arrived back in Korea a day later on 18 March 2024 and greeted fans in her usual cheerful self. Her agency announced legal action for malicious posts and comments against her, and there has been no other updates about the couple since.
While some of us may be eagerly waiting for more updates on the unexpected love triangle, others are hoping to see Han So Hee star in more K-dramas in the future. Whether you’re Team Han So Hee or Team Hyeri in this situation, at the end of the day, we can’t deny Han So Hee’s growing popularity and the hard work she put into growing as an actress.
Cover: Source, source, image courtesy of Netflix
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