Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
One of the best things about Jaejoong seemingly getting off the blacklist (a bit) is that he’s able to tell the stories from his career, especially since as a former TVXQ member he has some of the best ones. For about a month now he’s been talking specifically addressing the insanity he’s had to put up with over the years from sasaengs, opening up about it everywhere from his own YouTube channel to radio shows to some kind of horror talk show.
In fact, on his recently released album, FLOWER GARDEN, he dedicated a song called “Don’t” to sasaengs, “The song is about sasaeng fans. While the song’s vibe doesn’t convey this directly, the lyrics have elements of black comedy and bitterness.“
In one appearance he mentioned how he couldn’t open up about it before, not only because of being blacklisted but because they might push things even further.
Kim Jae Joong responded, “Now that time has passed, I can finally tell the truth… but back then, they were really terrifying fans. If Sasaengs went to such lengths, I couldn’t talk about it because I was afraid they might retaliate even more extremely.”
Fans used to get away with a lot more and sasaengs were basically allowed, so he had to deal with stalkers.
Joo Woo Jae remarked, “Even with stricter laws and measures, I always wondered, ‘How could they get into your house and you couldn’t do anything about it?'”
Kim Jae Joong shared, “At the time, the sentiment was, ‘They’re still fans, how can you talk about fans that way? What’s wrong with a fan visiting you? They might even come to your house.’ But being stalked for a year is truly unbearable.”
He added, “But the punishment for stalkers is only a fine of about 1.5 to 3 million KRW (1,078.81 ~2,157.63 USD). The scarier part is what happens after they pay the fine. The fear of retaliation makes you want to move and leave the area.”
I like to think him calling it cute was a way to cope with it in retrospect, because following that up with saying that he felt like dying is a 180.
Joo Woo Jae commented, “If I had been active back then and suffered like that, I would want to erase it from my memory quickly or feel uncomfortable if it was mentioned. But turning it into a song shows you have a certain wit and a sense of ease now.”
Kim Jaejoong concluded, “Now, it’s actually kind of cute in retrospect, but at the time, it felt like I was going to die.”
Going back a bit, the stories that he’s sharing are like telling Younghoon of The Boyz that fans used to send him pictures of his back while inside his own house, and that one fan snuck in and kissed him in his sleep.
In what then almost seems tame by comparison, he said fans used to want his DNA, so they would try to pull hair off and stuff.
Known as an idol who loves his fans so much, Kim Jae-joong emphasized, “Some of them (sasaengfans) even asked for my DNA. Some of them wanted to pull my hair. That’s unacceptable”. Surprised by the story, Park Myung-soo wondered, “Are there really such people?”. Kim Jae-joong added, “I encountered them several times”.
Modern idols definitely have to deal with bigger scale and increasingly deranged online things, but the first two generations were definitely dealing with a special kind of acceptable insanity in that idol culture and actual in-person threats with alarming regularity.
