In 2014, when the actress was only 13, a photo of Kim hanging out with some friends was uploaded to an online forum. The problem? The snap apparently showed a bottle of wine, while another photo also contained cigarettes. Naturally, people were critical because she was still a minor. She later explained that she had just attended a family party with some friends and didn’t engage in any drinking or smoking, per Kbizoom.

Rather than silently sucking up the hate, a deeply frustrated Kim demanded an apology from the press when the controversy got out of hand. Though people were critical, in the end she escaped this scandal mostly unscathed.

Re-gifting fan gifts?

When a popular Kim Sae-ron fan website called Ronday announced its closure via Twitter in 2018, it raised the question of – why?

Although closing fan webpages is common, this one was a special case ridden in speculation. Announced the closure, the founders said that they hoped the actress wouldn’t take gifts from fans lightly and to be grateful, “I hope in 2018, you are the Kim Sae-ron loved by even more people.”

While the announcement wasn’t aggressive, people started to wonder if the actress had re-gifted or thrown away fan gifts. Though there was no concrete evidence, many fans were so disappointed they imagined the page’s founder had been wronged in some way which led to its closure.

Dear. M controversy

Kim Sae-ron was originally supposed to lead the current hit K-drama Dear. M, and was even confirmed for the cast list back in 2020. The gig didn’t come through though as her agency announced she had left the line-up due to a “difference in opinion”.

Though her agency and the Dear. M production team denied this and said Sae-ron left for other reasons, many were unimpressed with her supposed haughty attitude.

The swearing incident

While it’s not such a taboo to swear in most English-speaking countries nowadays, using foul language in Korean is considered extremely rude, and when celebrities are caught swearing, the response is typically overwhelmingly negative. Despite this, when Kim was filmed swearing on a TV show in 2020 because of her struggle to catch a fish, her castmates and viewers all found it funny and even relatable.

However, this response quickly changed after her drink driving incident. Netizens criticised her for swearing in front of her elders, and asked her to “re-evaluate” her character.

That drink driving incident

On May 18, the actress was pulled over by police after crashing into an electric transformer, which led to around 50 places nearby temporarily losing electricity.

She quickly shared an apology (with a handwritten letter, of course) and committed to pay any damages. Her blood alcohol level was reported to be 0.2 per cent, which is enough for her license to be revoked. Unsurprisingly, this caused a massive stir in Korea, where the actress was relentlessly criticised for her irresponsible behaviour, also leading to her being dropped from projects such as the upcoming drama Trolley and Netflix series Hunting Dogs.