A viral theqoo post has since exposed an award-winning actress’s deep, dark past.
The post, shared on January 21, 2025 (KST), highlighted actress Byun Joong Hee (or Byeon Jung Hee) as someone who switched to acting after following a completely different career path most of her life.
According to the post, Byun Joong Hee was a middle school biology teacher for 39 years before she made her debut when she turned 65. Since then, she has taken on memorable supporting roles in popular K-Movies and K-Dramas like Hidden Face, Taxi Driver, Light Shop, and the currently airing The Queen Who Crowns.
Her acting career has been building quite well. In fact, in 2023, at the “2023 SBS Drama Awards,” Byun Joong Hee took home the “Scene Stealer Award.”
But while sharing pictures from her teaching days, the post ended up shedding light on the senior actress’s alleged discipline method of her students: Extreme corporal punishment.
Under the link shared by the post, a 2013 blog entry from the official Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Byun Joong Hee is praised for being a “mother figure” to her male students.
Ms. Byun Joong Hee, who started teaching at Boin Middle School in 1976, has many ‘sons’ and refers to herself as being a ‘boy mom.’ This is because she has spent 37 years teaching at an all-boys school. When she first started, there were only three female teachers at the school. Back then, she was sewing for her students—as the energetic and active middle school boys would constantly rip their pants or lose the buttons on their uniforms. The loving act of sewing continues to this day.
— Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education
In the comments, however, the teacher-turned-actress’s former students have come forward since 2022 and called her out on the sheer act of violence that she would commit against her so-called “sons.”
There’s a story that my husband tells me all the time. It’s about his trauma from his school days. He said that in 8th grade, whenever he didn’t bring his supplies, his homeroom teacher would slap him across both sides of the face so hard that his nose would start bleeding. She wouldn’t stop even when his uniform shirt would soak in blood. That broke his spirit and he never really healed from it… So he was really surprised to find that she became an actress. Yes, back in the day, physical violence was used more commonly as a form of discipline. But her? She couldn’t control her anger, even when my husband would start bleeding from both nostrils. Looking at the other comments… It sounds like he wasn’t the only one who was slapped. Like, wow. She sure is something else.
— Netizen Comment
- “I specifically remember her ordering me to bring her those fried octopus snacks before class would start. I also do remember her beating the student a lot… Haha. I graduated in 1997.”
- “She used to hit us with a metal rod that was wrapped with black tape. A true teaching moment for all.”
- “I graduated from Boin Middle School in 2005. If I remember correctly, she taught biology. And man, she beat up her students so much. The school itself had a problem with violent teachers, though. Like all of the teachers had their choice of weapon. One of them was like a martial arts type, too. Anyway… I’ve never been beaten up like I was beaten up at Boin Middle School. And I’m from the Marines. Even the military didn’t assault me like she did.”
The post garnered great attention with hundreds of comments debating whether Byun Joong Hee should even “be allowed to act.” Slamming her for the shamelessness to show her face on television after having traumatized her students, K-Movie and K-Drama fans expressed concern and disappointment.
- “If these are true, I hope she won’t get to act anymore. This is horrible.”
- “I never thought she was all that good at acting… So if any of this is true, she should lay low and live out of the spotlight.”
- “The audacity to show her face on TV after all that she has done…”
- “So the accounts of having received corporal punishment from this woman didn’t all pop up at once. It has been mentioned for a while now. Yet she kept acting… So blatantly shameless.”
- “Is she out of her mind?! After having done what she did, she debuted as an actress? Really???”
- “I wonder what she was like for them to compare it to the Marines and say it was worse…”
Amid the growing criticism, Byun Joong Hee has not responded.
Source: theqoo and @seouledu2012
