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Singer rebounds after airplane ruckus, sheds tears on TV
Bobby Kim speaks during a press conference at The Riverside Hotel in Seoul's Seocho-gu, Oct. 22, 2014, after releasing the full-length album "Mirror." Korea Times file
By Ko Dong-hwan
By Ko Dong-hwan
Singer Bobby Kim, after being prosecuted over a disturbance on a flight and sexually harassing a stewardess in 2015, returned to TV on Sunday, shedding tears as he appeared on a singing competition show on MBC.
Kim, 46, was on “
,” where celebrities sing with a mask on to hide their identities and only take it off after losing a round.
On Sunday, Kim was wearing a costume designed to mimic Che Guevara. He lost to an unidentified performer with the stage name “Gulliver.”
In an interview during the show, Kim said that when he took off the mask and saw the audience cheering him, he felt glad. He started to cry after he said: “It's been a while.”
Bobby Kim cries after taking off his mask on "King of Mask Singer." The episode aired on May 5. Courtesy of MBC
In 2015, Kim booked a business-class seat on a Korean Air flight to San Francisco from Incheon but was given an economy seat due to an airline mistake. He complained but the company could not fix the problem.
Kim got drunk on the flight and disrupted the cabin by screaming and pulling a stewardess by the waist toward him. He was charged with infringement of the Aviation Security Act and, after being indicted without arrest, was fined 4 million won ($3,430). He did not appeal.
“I sang to my family members and friends during a party celebrating my parents' 50th wedding anniversary,” Kim told the show's host Kim Sung-joo. “That's when I realized an epiphany that what I have done for a living was singing and I really wanted to do it again.”
Kim, known for soulful vocal skills, said that singing after more than four years and seeing the audience “produced a mixed feeling inexpressible in words.”