Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Kim Hyun Joong‘s lawyers have recently cast doubts on his ex’s evidence of her current pregnancy, and his ex’s lawyers fired back. But it didn’t stop there, as KHJ’s lawyers then released a statement that casts doubts that he fractured her ribs, that he caused her to miscarry, and that she’s currently pregnant, and then announced a defamation countersuit.
Here’s the initial back-and-forth over her current pregnancy…
On June 3, Kim Hyun Joong’s side stated, “If you look at the medical documents submitted by Miss Choi, there is nothing about a positive pregnancy. What’s written is that there is no evidence of pregnancy. Miss Choi’s side submitted the text messages between her and Kim Hyun Joong as proof.”
However, Miss Choi’s representation has stated otherwise. Her lawyer said, “Miss Choi is currently focusing on her pregnancy… In order to prove the pregnancy, we’ve brought the documents from the sonogram. Afterwards, we will submit the evidence as well as bring a witness. We can fully prove Ms. Choi’s pregnancy. You can’t hide the truth.”
…and here is KHJ’s lawyer’s statement that led to the announcing of a countersuit.
Now, Kim Hyun Joong’s side is pointing out that Miss Choi cannot prove that her X-ray of her bone fracture is evidence of Kim Hyun Joong’s violence. They stated, “She said the bone fracture happened on July 21, but the X-ray she took was on August 18. In order for her to submit this as evidence of assault, she would have had to taken the X-ray right after it happened, otherwise it could be seen as something else having happened afterwards to cause the fracture. That X-ray serves as evidence of her injury, but it does not serve as evidence that it was an injury inflicted by Kim Hyun Joong.”
Miss Choi had also claimed that her miscarriage was probably caused by his assault to her abdomen region, so on that, the singer’s lawyers stated, “In addition, if there were assault to her abdomen, then there should be pictures of her abdomen, but we’ve only seen pictures of her shoulders and arms. At the time, Kim Hyun Joong didn’t even have time to check these things out because he was scared by her threats to expose him to the media that he just gave her the settlement of amount of 600 million KRW (~ $546,000 USD). That is an absurd amount of settlement money… Through this lawsuit, we will recheck all the facts from the past assault controversy as well.”
It doesn’t stop there, his lawyers are also once again pointing out that Miss Choi could be lying about her current pregnancy (the one that happened this year). “After December 20, Kim Hyun Joong and Choi broke up. And then on January 3, Choi told Kim Hyun Joong she was pregnant. We spoke with gynecology experts and they say that you can’t check for pregnancy with an over-the-counter pregnancy tester 12 or 13 days into pregnancy. They said that you can only confirm pregnancy that early through blood test and ultrasounds, but Choi said that she found out she was pregnant through a pregnancy tester… We plan to find out whether she really was pregnant on January 3 when she notified us by consulting with experts. But if it turns out that Kim Hyun Joong is really the father of her baby, then we are making it clear that he will take responsibility as the father.”
On their counter suit against Miss Choi, Kim Hyun Joong’s lawyer commented, “Because of Miss Choi’s lawsuit, Kim Hyun Joong has been made out to be a person who caused a pregnant woman to miscarry with assault. So we are preparing a counter suit on the grounds of defamation. We will file this damage suit within June. We are currently calculating the amount we will sue for, which is at least 1.2 billion KRW (1 million USD), if taking into consideration the fine of 600 million KRW she needs to pay for breaching the terms of her settlement last year (that she wouldn’t expose anything to the media) plus the actual 600 million KRW she received as settlement. We are also figuring out how much we will ask for on the defamation brought upon Kim Hyun Joong.”
Alright, that’s a lot to sort through, so I’m going to try and help you out. Let’s just cut through the PR shit and get to what we actually know.
As of now, what remains is KHJ’s apology for one assault incident in May, KHJ claiming another assault incident in July that caused her rib injury was him showing off his MMA, one alleged past pregnancy that allegedly ended in miscarriage, one alleged current pregnancy, a death threat via text, and the recently announced countersuit for defamation.
1) May 2014 Assault Incident
Kim Hyun Joong has admitted this happened to the police. There was also a text where he apologizes to her after she texts him that she’s bruised and “was beat up just enough to not die”. He later apologized publicly in a statement and said not to put any blame on her.
This assault is not in dispute by his lawyers.
2) July 2014 Assault Incident
Kim Hyun Joong admitted to police that her injuries (broken rib) happened, but said that it was in the context of them playing around and that it was not abuse. He later said her injuries were the result of him showing off his MMA skills to her, and this incident was also covered in the aforementioned public apology that he released.
Kim Hyun Joong’s lawyers are acknowledging that she did break her rib, but are contending that she can’t prove that the broken rib was caused by Kim Hyun Joong. While I suppose this might be legally possible to prove, in reality, believing this would mean you believe his claim that he was just practicing MMA on his girlfriend. That’s a stretch for me, so regardless of what the court might rule I’ll stick with my skepticism of his claim unless new evidence is brought to light.
3) Past Pregnancy And Miscarriage
On these two issues, our knowledge of the situations in question are much more murky. Kim Hyun Joong’s lawyers do not seem to be contesting that a past pregnancy occurred nor that an assault took place (they mention seeing assault pictures of her shoulders/arms), but they are doubting that KHJ hit her in the abdomen region, thus directly causing the miscarriage. His lawyers have previously released assorted pictures of her with KHJ supposedly after the assault and alleged miscarriage occurred as proof that she was lying, though they oddly also don’t show her abdomen nor prove that the pictures were taken when they say they were.
Counter to KHJ’s narrative, her side previously revealed a text message exchange where Kim Hyun Joong acknowledges the pregnancy of his ex and discusses the prospect of her having an abortion. During that text exchange, she appears to have sent him pictures of her beaten body, at which point he apologizes to her for that happening, and the exchange ends with her saying she thinks she miscarried because she was hit in the stomach so frequently. Also, KHJ paid out a settlement to her for the alleged miscarriage already, which could be viewed as an acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
Based on the evidence provided by both sides thus far, it’s hard to doubt that she was pregnant back then and that she was assaulted, just based off KHJ’s own words. The miscarriage aspect is still questionable because the texts didn’t show him acknowledging that he hit her in the stomach, but logically it seems likely that a pregnant woman that suffers from any abuse would be more likely to miscarry, and that is only reinforced by the fact that he already paid a settlement to keep her quiet. Given that she obviously did not have a baby previously, I have to think her side makes more sense.
4) Current Pregnancy & Paternity Of Child
Kim Hyun Joong’s lawyers are questioning whether she’s actually pregnant and whether he’s actually the father, but then go on to say that if she is pregnant and it is his then he’ll take responsibility. That kind of hedge throws up question marks for me, just because if they were confident that she was full of it, why even include that hedge? Odd.
Still, it’s valid to question whether or not she’s pregnant with KHJ’s child, as nothing has been definitively proven so far in my view. That said, we do have past texts showing that Kim Hyun Joong had acknowledged both the pregnancy and the child as his. There’s also the proof of pregnancy that her lawyers provided, though that is being disputed by his lawyers.
There’s no way for me to say definitively that she’s pregnant and that it’s his, but given the evidence provided thus far, it’s hard to side with him at the moment since all he’s provided is press statements. Either way, at least in this case we’ll eventually figure out for sure whether she’s pregnant or whether it’s his, since she’ll give birth or not and the child can be tested to figure out if it’s his or not.
5) Death Threat Text
Kim Hyun Joong sent a death threat to his ex via text message while she was allegedly pregnant with his current alleged child, and he warned her of the penalty if she cheats on him while he’s in the army.
While I’ve seen people argue that he was joking, the surrounding context was him telling her that he’ll be branded a criminal if she doesn’t do a favor for him, so it certainly didn’t sound like a joke. Oh yeah, plus the fact that he’s an admitted abuser.
This incident has not been contested by his side.
6) Defamation Countersuit
The defamation countersuit would have validity if everything his lawyers are contending ends up being true.
Even though Kim Hyun Joong copped to previous abuse, “accidentally” injured her ribs another time, and sent her a death threat, if she is indeed lying about two alleged pregnancies and one miscarriage that was allegedly caused by him, then he likely has a strong case to sue the hell out of her for making that stuff up.
That said, if she’s not making it up, this counter assault by his lawyers is going to ensure he’s remembered as one of the most fucked up dudes in K-pop history.
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So that’s where everything seems to stand as of now.
And look, I hate witch hunts and try to keep an open mind on these types of things, but my problem with trying to take the dissenting road in this case is that almost every shred of objective evidence provided (like text convos or medical reports) has backed her narrative and not his. Hell, even his own words back her narrative. To date, the primary thing his side has been doing is trying to create doubt, but they’re providing very little else aside from words and speculation. They keep saying they’re going to clarify things definitively, but never actually release anything except press statements.
If the facts change in this case, then so will my opinion, but it’s difficult right now for me to look at this case objectively and think that the credibility lies with the admitted abuser (which will be true no matter what happens with the rest of this) whose own words confirm her side of the story.
Now we’ll just have to see where it all goes from here.
