Kim Soo-hyun’s Comeback Is Coming

Featured photo: Kim Soo-hyun at the 2024 NEWSIS K-EXPO, August 2024. Photo: K-POPIT via YouTube / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Kim Soo-hyun’s comeback is coming. On October 2, twenty thousand fans called his name in Manila. In December the AAA 2026 stage in Kaohsiung is waiting for him, and since he announced his return he has reportedly been offered more than 40 film and drama scripts (Star News). As happy as this comeback makes me, one thing needs to be said clearly: Kim Soo-hyun was wronged.

In the spring of 2025, Korea was shaken by claims that the Queen of Tears star had dated the late actress Kim Sae-ron when she was a minor. In May 2026, Seoul’s Gangnam Police concluded that the key piece of evidence, a recording of her voice, had been generated with AI. Kim Se-ui, head of the YouTube channel Hover Lab (Garosero Research Institute) that spread the claims, has been indicted and is on trial in detention. The child-welfare complaint against Kim Soo-hyun was closed with no charges for lack of evidence.

Before those conclusions arrived, he lost a year and a half of ads, work and stages. More than fifteen endorsement deals fell away, advertisers sued him for roughly $7.1 million in total, and the release of his roughly $43 million Disney+ series Knock-Off was frozen.

And now the courts are turning first. In August 2026 a Seoul court threw out, in full, an advertiser’s lawsuit demanding its fee back. As a fan, that ruling made me want to cry with relief. The truth came back far too late, but it came back.

The man who fronted 17 brands at once

You have to remember who Kim Soo-hyun was to see how much was taken from him. He became a household name with KBS’s Dream High in 2011.

In 2012, MBC’s Moon Embracing the Sun peaked at a 42.2% rating, and that year he fronted 17 products at the same time, breaking figure skater Yuna Kim’s record of 15 (Wikipedia).

In 2014, SBS’s My Love from the Star passed 14.5 billion views on the Chinese platform iQIYI alone, and his endorsement count reached 35.

After his military service, tvN’s It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (2020) was named by The New York Times among the best international shows of the year.

The peak was Queen of Tears in 2024. Its finale hit 24.850%, the highest rating in tvN history, and it stayed in Netflix’s global Top 10 for non-English TV for 15 straight weeks. Gallup Korea ranked him No. 2 among TV actors of the year with 11.9% (News1), and in January 2025 he became a face of Prada. The whole world cried over the way Baek Hyun-woo looked at Hong Hae-in. Nobody argued when people called him Korea’s top-tier actor and the king of commercials.

Where to watch: Queen of Tears (https://www.netflix.com/title/81707950) and It’s Okay to Not Be Okay are on Netflix in the US and Korea (checked October 29, 2026).

Also read: Moviegoers Walked Out Calling Her Korea's "First Love"

March 2025: what one YouTube channel started

Actress Kim Sae-ron died in February 2025. May she rest in peace. In March, Hover Lab began claiming that Kim Soo-hyun had dated her for six years, starting when she was 15.

On March 14, his agency Gold Medalist confirmed the two had dated, but said the relationship ran from the summer of 2019 to the fall of 2020, after she had become an adult. It denied any relationship while she was a minor and denied claims that it had pressured her over debt. On March 31, Kim tearfully denied the allegations at a press conference and filed a lawsuit worth about 12 billion won (about $8.6 million) against the family and others (Nocut News).

Public opinion did not wait. Before any investigation or trial had begun, the verdict was already in.

Ads gone overnight, a $43 million drama on the shelf

On the very day the agency disclosed the dating timeline, CJ Foodville, the owner of Tous les Jours bakeries, ended its contract. He had been the face of more than fifteen brands, including Shinhan Bank, Homeplus, Cuckoo, Jo Malone London and Eider, and the deals drained away one after another (Sports Kyunghyang). Prada ended its collaboration too. His fan meetings in Kaohsiung and Taipei were canceled.

Cutting ties turned into lawsuits. The aesthetics-device maker Classys had about $2.1 million of his apartment provisionally seized (OSEN). By June 2025, four advertiser suits totaling about $5.2 million had been confirmed, and in August six companies claimed about $7.1 million, citing “image maintenance” clauses (NewDaily).

The cruelest loss was the work itself. Knock-Off, his Disney+ series with Jo Bo-ah and Yoo Jae-myung, was shelved indefinitely ahead of its 2025 release. It is the story of an ordinary office worker during the 1997 Asian financial crisis who becomes king of the global counterfeit market, and it was the project Kim chose right after Queen of Tears (The Fact).

What police found: the voice was AI

On May 14, 2026, after investigating for more than a year, Seoul’s Gangnam Police concluded that Kim Se-ui had spread the claims knowing they were false, in order to draw public attention. The recording presented as Kim Sae-ron’s voice blaming Kim Soo-hyun was, police judged, AI-generated (Sports Kyunghyang).

On May 26, the Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant, citing a risk that he would destroy evidence or flee (Herald Korea). On June 4, police sent his case to prosecutors in detention on charges including defamation by false statements, stalking, distributing illegally obtained images, attempted coercion and intimidation. Prosecutors indicted him on June 23, alleging 25 false broadcasts between March and May 2025, and moved to freeze about $121,000 he earned from them (Dailian). His side denies the charges, pointing out that Korea’s National Forensic Service could not determine whether the recording was AI-made. He is standing trial in detention.

The case against Kim Soo-hyun went the other way. Seoul’s Seongdong Police declined to forward the child-welfare complaint filed by the family, and a false-accusation complaint filed by Kim Se-ui, on July 29 for lack of evidence, and on September 3 prosecutors returned the file without asking for further investigation. According to Kim’s lawyer Ko Sang-rok, the investigation covered both whether there was a relationship before she turned 18 and whether there was any abuse (Star News). On October 26, his agency said that others who helped spread the false claims had also been sent to prosecutors (Asia Economy).

The courts turned first

On August 27, 2026, the Seoul Eastern District Court dismissed in full a lawsuit by Swiss watchmaker Mido seeking about $412,000 in fees back. Mido did not appeal, and the ruling became final on September 10. Kim’s lawyer Bang Sung-hoon said it set a standard that “shifting the damage onto the victim of false allegations is not legally acceptable” (Tenasia).

Outdoor brand Eider first sought about $1.8 million, then dropped its penalty claim and cut its demand to about $286,000 in unpaid fees. The court said even that was “doubtful as a legal matter,” and reportedly urged a settlement, treating the case as shared damage from false allegations (Sports Kyunghyang). In other words, the advertisers and Kim Soo-hyun were victims of the same lie.

The people who stayed by his side

His fans spoke first. On March 15, 2025, they issued a statement expressing deep concern that he was being pushed off television “on one-sided allegations alone, without fair verification” (Newsis). When everyone else turned away, they asked people to wait for the investigation, and they were right.

After the police findings, a politician spoke up too. Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform Party, wrote on social media on May 22, 2026: “The square that demands accountability is always packed, but the place that gives back a person’s honor is always silent.” He added that on the day he sees “Kim Soo-hyun, an actor who represents Korea,” in a good new project, he will be ready to applaud (Sports Kyunghyang). Columnist Kang Il-hong of The Fact wrote that “trial by public opinion ran ahead of legal judgment” (The Fact).

And then Kim Soo-hyun came back. A shoot for Philippine brand Bench in July, a guest spot on Indonesian broadcaster RCTI’s 37th-anniversary special in August, and on September 19 a presenter’s role at The Fact Music Awards, his first official public appearance in Korea in a year and a half.

On October 2, about 20,000 people filled the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Manila. He greeted them in the local language, sang songs from Dream High, choked up again and again as he thanked them, and came back out after the show just to see his fans off (Daum). On December 5 and 6, the AAA 2026 stage in Kaohsiung awaits, the same city where his fan meeting was canceled last year. His newest campaign, for BENCH Workwear, came out on October 17.

Now I am waiting for Knock-Off. A series made for about $43 million, mostly filmed, the next face of the actor whose gaze as Baek Hyun-woo made the world cry, is still sitting in a vault.

Sources: Wikipedia, News1, Nocut News, Sports Kyunghyang, OSEN, NewDaily, The Fact, Herald Korea, Dailian, Star News, Asia Economy, Tenasia, Newsis, Daum. Dollar figures converted at about 1,400 won per dollar.