Ahn Jung-hwan's Daughter Is 2 Days Into Her First Job After Graduating NYU

Former South Korean football star Ahn Jung-hwan shared on the September 12 episode of MBC's variety program Nol-myeon Mwohani that his daughter Ri-won had just begun her first job, noting she was on her second day of work as of the recording date. The news placed him squarely inside a familiar pattern on Korean entertainment television: a celebrity parent whose children have grown up partly in public, now suddenly confronting the fact that one of them is a working adult.

The segment was framed around a send-off for Ahn, who is heading to the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games as a broadcast commentator. His castmates, including host Yoo Jae-suk, organized a "Italy in Korea" outing for him, given that Ahn has not been to Italy since the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which he played a defining role in for South Korea. Over Italian food and memories from that era, the conversation drifted naturally toward family.

"Ri-won graduated and came back to Korea," Ahn said. "She got a job, and today is her second day." Ri-won, who majored in sports management at New York University and graduated last semester, had returned to Korea to begin her career. Yoo Jae-suk's reaction was immediate: "She's already got a job?" He has known Ri-won since she was a child, having watched her grow up across various appearances over the years, which made the moment land differently than a standard celebrity family update.

The rest of the cast congratulated Ahn on raising his children well, using the Korean idiom jashik nongsa (literally "child farming"), which is a common way of praising a parent whose children have turned out well. They then pivoted to demanding he treat everyone to a celebratory meal in his daughter's honor, a custom called chwijikcheok in Korean, typically paid by the person who just got the job. Ahn pushed back: "My daughter got the job, so why am I buying?"

He also gave a brief update on his son Ri-hwan, now a third-year high school student in the middle of university entrance exam preparations. Ahn noted with some mock-mournful affect that his son has grown old enough to no longer want to spend time with his father. Nol-myeon Mwohani aired at 6:30 p.m. on the 12th.