Actress willing to testify about Jang Ja-yeon scandal

Actress Lee Mi-sook poses at Lancome ceremony in 2018. Korea Times file.

By Jung Hae-myoung

Actress Lee Mi-sook. 58, said she is willing to testify if her testimony is necessary to unearth the truth and clear suspicions about the death of fellow actress Jang Ja-yeon who committed suicide in 2009.

“I regret she committed suicide. If my testimony is needed to unearth the truth, I am willing to testify in front of the investigators,” she said in a statement released Friday by her management agency Sidus HQ.

Lee said she will undergo further questioning “if the investigation is carried our fairly and the public can acknowledge this” so that “the honor of the deceased can be recovered.”

Her statement came days after fellow actress Yoon Ji-oh said Lee was one of the actresses in a position to know the truth behind Jang's death and pressured her to make anything she knows about Jang's death public.

Despite the call, Lee remained silent for a while before she made the statement.

“I was cautious about the issue because I was worried that I could be quoted out of context and my words about the tragic death of the young actress could be used as gossip, not part of an endeavor to find the truth behind her death,” her statement read.

Lee had been in a legal dispute with her previous agency ― The Content Entertainment ― also a management company for Jang before she killed herself. She is accused of taking advantage of Jang's note to turn the tide in favor of her in the legal battle. In Jang's letter, some 40 business moguls, politicians, influential figures in media outlets and show business were listed as alleged clients she had been forced to have provided sexual services for during her career.

Jang committed suicide in 2009 after leaving four pages of her last words listing the names of prominent politicians, business moguls, the publishers of major newspapers and influential figures in show business with whom she was forced to have sex.