Kim Gun-woo Denies Death Reports After Fake Obituary Posted to His Account

A death notice appeared on retired short-track skater Kim Gun-woo's Instagram account in the early hours of the 23rd, worded in the formal language of a Korean obituary and asking followers to offer condolences. By around 9:30 a.m., several outlets had published reports of his death, and fans began leaving tributes online. The problem was that Kim Gun-woo was alive, and he says he had nothing to do with the post.

Later that afternoon, Kim published a lengthy statement on the same account confirming he was okay and denying authorship of the obituary. "The post in question is not something I wrote or published myself," he said. "It was posted to my account without my knowledge and against my wishes."

Locked out while the post spread

His explanation centers on a straightforward but troubling sequence of events. At the time the obituary appeared, Kim says he was unable to log into the Instagram account at all. Because he had no access, he had no way of knowing the post existed. He only found out after friends and acquaintances began reaching out to check on him.

"I was unable to access the account normally when the post was uploaded," he wrote. "It was only through contact from people around me that I later confirmed a post had been made."

What caused the account lockout and how the obituary came to be posted are still, as of his statement, unresolved. Kim said he is investigating both questions and will provide a fuller account once the facts are confirmed. He specifically asked that speculation not circulate in the meantime: "Rather than stating unconfirmed details as fact, I felt it was right to provide accurate information once the situation is clearly understood."

Who Kim Gun-woo is

Kim was born in 1998 and competed for the South Korean national short-track team for several years. In the 2018-2019 season he ranked first in the ISU World Cup 1500m standings. His most recent competitive peak came in the 2023-2024 season, when he won individual gold medals at three consecutive ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup events, taking the men's 1000m at the first and the men's 1500m at the second and third. At the 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games, he competed in the mixed 2000m relay preliminary round and contributed to South Korea's gold medal run in the event.

He did not make the final national team cut for the 2026 Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Olympics, finishing as an alternate in the selection trials. On June 22 he announced his retirement from competitive skating. At the time he said he was stepping away from the sport that had defined his life since childhood.

The fake obituary incident points to something that has become a recurring concern across Korean celebrity and sports culture: accounts belonging to public figures being compromised or manipulated to post harmful content, with media and fans acting on that content before any verification takes place. In this case, the misinformation circulated for hours before Kim was able to correct it himself.