IU, Hyeri and Chungha all paid off their families’ debts – 6 K-pop idols who gifted billions of won to the parents who supported them on their way up

May 19 , 2021

IU, Zico and Chungha are three of the six K-pop idols who spent their first earnings helping their families to pay off debts. Photo: @dlwlrma, @woozico0914/Instagram, handout

After making it big in 2010 with the song Good Day, IU has had success on stage and screen, in the Netflix series Persona and the K-drama Hotel Del Luna

After success with K-drama Reply 1988, Hyeri of Girl’s Day is in two more in 2021: My Roommate is a Gumiho and Think of the Moon When the Flower Blooms

It hasn’t always been peaches and cream for every K-pop idol. While some South Korean stars are famous for being born into “silver-spoon” families, many idols come from average family backgrounds. Don’t believe us? How about this: some even paid off their family’s debts after earning their first pay cheques. Here are six idols whom you’d never expect to have come from such humble backgrounds.

Hyeri from Girl’s Day

Hyeri from Girl’s Day is currently the cream of the idol-turned-actress world. Not only did she hit it big with her role in Reply 1988, but she is slated for two more dramas in 2021: My Roommate is a Gumiho and When Flowers Bloom, I Think of the Moon.

Hyeri debuted in 2010 at 16 and by 2014 she’d done well enough, according to Koreaboo, that she could buy an apartment in Jamsil, Seoul for her family, as well as an imported luxury car for her dad.

Jung Eun-ji from Apink

Best known simply as Eunji, she told fashion magazine Grazia about her family’s struggles with money. “I thought that once I have money, I would pay off the debt so that we could live without any worries. The time for it came unexpectedly and I gradually paid off the interest and then the principal.”

She took her mother on a trip back to where she had had her honeymoon on Jeju Island and made her a meal: “I set up a table for my mother and pushed the bankbook towards her and she cried. We embraced each other and cried together.”