Opinion | K-pop deaths of Goo Hara, Sulli and Jonghyun leave industry with blood on its hands
- To have three celebrities from the same industry, in the same country, die in less than two years shows that something has gone tragically wrong
- Pressure placed on singers and performers by K-pop industry, and lack of mental health support, has reaped a devastating cost
It’s time to admit it: something is rotten in the world of K-pop.
The trio are of course not the first music icons to commit suicide – Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain famously died by his own hand in 1994, and more recently we have seen the death by suicide of The Prodigy’s Keith Flint (March this year) and Chester Bennington from Linkin Park (July 2017).
But to have three celebrities from the same industry, in the same country, die in the space of less than two years indicates that something has gone tragically wrong in K-pop.
The pressure the K-pop machine exerts on its stars – particularly women – is immense. It begins the moment they enter training schools as teenagers: they have their mobile phones taken from them, they are cut off from family and friends, forbidden from engaging in normal youthful relationships, and are taught to project a bizarre, conflicting image of both innocence and sexual availability.
And the cost for any transgression – particularly from K-pop’s obsessive sasaeng fans – can be huge.
