Ostracized singer still hopeful of returning to Korea
Steven Yoo / Courtesy of weibo.com/liuchengjun
By Ko Dong-hwan
Yoo has been showing off his chiseled muscles on Chinese television and through his Chinese social network.
Ostracized K-pop singer Steven Yoo, who allegedly dodged mandatory military service by becoming an American citizen, says he hasn’t lost hope of returning to South Korea.
The singer, 41, has been trying to gain clearance from a South Korean court to re-enter the country.
Yoo moved to Hawaii with his family last summer. He told Sports Chosun on Tuesday he has been active in Chinese show business as an actor and recently went into film production. He said his family had been staying with him in China for the past 10 years while he pursued his show business career.
“It is 16 years in February since the South Korean government shut me out,” Yoo said. “I think it is too harsh.”
He said his situation has come about through “a prejudice out of misunderstanding and lies” and “it must be straightened out and I will do so once I land in Korea.”
Yoo performs in a K-pop music show on cable television network Mnet in 1999, during his heyday in South Korea. / Korea Times file
Yoo debuted in 1997 and released six albums in South Korea before his exile in 2002.
The dance music prodigy confessed in the interview that the ordeal has badly affected his wife, children and parents. His father has been particularly hit, suffering bladder cancer, which has been blamed on excessive stress.
Yoo filed a suit against the Korean consulate in the United States after it refused him a visa in October 2015.
In February 2017, the Seoul High Court upheld a lower court ruling that banned Yoo from entering the country because of the military service charge. Yoo filed a petition of appeal to the Supreme Court in March 2017.
Yoo requested the visa 13 years after the Ministry of Justice banned him from entering the country. It followed a barrage of public criticism after he obtained American citizenship and forfeited his Korean citizenship in January 2002, despite repeated promises to fulfill his military duty.