Ever since actress Jang Ja-yeon committed suicide on March 8, there has been talk of a suicide note which detailed her reasons for committing suicide.
A representative at another agency identified as Yu, to whom Jang had reportedly talked about her problems, is believed to have seen the suicide note but has been incommunicado since he wrote on his website, “People in the entertainment world know why she killed herself.”
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Her former manager has come forward and it has come to light that her suicide note described traumatic indignities that she endured before finally taking her own life.
Police have started investigating the authenticity of a note actress Jang Ja-yeon allegedly left before committing suicide on March 8. The note said she was unable to withstand the pressure of entertaining and having sex with program directors and corporate and media executives.
The former manager of the 30-year-old actress made public her alleged handwritten letters. Jang, who recently starred in the hit drama “Boys Over Flowers,” was found dead in an apparent suicide at her home in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province.
According to the Bundang Police Station, Jang’s letter said she was beaten, forced to serve drinks, act as an escort at golf matches and coerced into sex with several program directors, CEOs and media executives.
“Jang’s letter aroused concern toward the unfairness of entertainers’ contracts once again,” a FTC [Fair Trade Commission] official said. “We found several unfair contracts at big agencies last year, but it’s almost impossible to investigate hundreds of small- and medium-sized companies.”
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Unfortunately, this seems to be common in the entertainment industry here.
재키림은 마약을 비롯한 좋지 않은 사건에 휘말리는데, 그녀가 이런 사건에 빠진 이유는 ‘한국에서 실력으로 활동하려 했지만 자신을 성적대상으로만 보면서 높은 사람 자리에 불려나가야 하고, 동료연예인들로부터 왕따당하면서 외로워서 약을 하게 되었다.’고 밝혔다. 재원이라고 떠들었던 뒷편에는 여성 연예인에 대한 여전한 성차별과 고위권의 압력, 동료 연예인의 텃세가 있었던 것이다.
Later, she became disgusted and further disheartened by trying to succeed as a singer in Korea through her own abilities but while facing the virtual prostitution of female entertainers that goes on behind the scenes. Not only was she regularly pressured to entertain and provide sexual services for politicians and business leaders, who saw her merely as yet another trophy girlfriend to be used, but on top of that she was also ostracized by other entertainers too, angered by whom they saw as an uppity overseas Korean whom they intended to put in her place. In the end she became very lonely and depressed and got involved with drugs.
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On the sexualization of actors and pop stars:
One time the band I was playing in back in 2002, the year I arrived here, or maybe 2003, and we had a gig at the OLD (yack! mold! but nice mood…) location of Club Bbang. I think it was summer 2003, actually. Anyway, before we played, I went outside into the street as usual with my horn to warm up.
(Saxophones need more warm-up, you know, checking the reed and getting the embouchre tight and so on.)
(Quit laughing about my nice tight embouchre, you dirty-minded slobs!)
Anyway, this guy was standing around, ordering people about as a film shoot for some crappy TV drama or other was being conducted — apparently some famous show from 2002, but my Korean was so bad at that stage that I missed it, so I guess it was famous. Anyway, I walked off around a corner and walked off to warm up, and came back a while later.
When I returned, the rest of the band was outside having a smoke and beer, waiting for our gig to start. Three guys in the band were foreigners, but I was the only obvious (non-Asian) one. So when I got back, I joined the crowd to watch the film shoot, and the guy running the show noticed me standing there with my horn.
When the actress flubbed something, and they had to re-shoot, meaning the car pursuing her had to drive off. This guy who was running the show turned around and started chatting with me in English. “Pretty actress, isn’t she?” A few minutes later, he was bragging about the sexual favors he’d gotten from the lead main actress in the show, and all the women in the show in fact, and how his wife had no idea. (Yeah, sure!)
My somewhat unimpressed reaction was, “Is that so?” He was so brazen about it, and he seemed just sleazy enough to have maybe done so, and quite proud to have gotten a job with such good perks. I was surprised, though, and took his bragging for bullshit. My bandmates suddenly started speaking English, and he joked with them about it, too. It was pretty stomach-turning, as well as surprising — he seemed to take for granted that his whole crew had no idea what he was saying. Or didn’t care, probably.
I asked around after that, and everyone (Korean) I knew said, “Yeah, that’s showbiz here. Poor girls. But they get easy money, so… yeah, it’s like a 다방 girl…” Maybe it’s just such common knowledge (or so commonly assumed) nobody publicizes it?
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