Lee Hye-sung, Four Years After Jun Hyun-moo Split, Calls Staying Single a Valid Choice

Former KBS announcer Lee Hye-sung said on the 13th that choosing never to marry is "one of the options," in a video on her YouTube channel, Lee Hye-sung's 1% Book Club. The remark came four years after her public relationship with fellow broadcaster Jun Hyun-moo ended in 2022.

The video, titled "Who Should You Marry to Be Happy? Yang Gwi-ja's Mojun," uses the popular Korean novel as a starting point. Lee opened with the idea that life is a chain of choices and asked what the most important one is. Her own answer: deciding who to spend your life with. She then added that resolving to live alone is part of that same decision.

Love, stability and the questions she left open

Lee said the question of marriage touches everyone, regardless of gender. She asked whether marrying makes a person happier, and if so, when and to whom. "Is there even such a thing as a right or wrong choice?" she wondered aloud. Those already married, she suggested, may ask whether staying with their spouse for life is right, or whether parting ways sooner would be better. She also noted that the forms marriage takes have become more varied.

She framed one central dilemma: is it happier to marry someone you love, or wiser to marry someone stable? Lee did not settle it. "There can be many interpretations of marriage," she said, and she pointed to the saying that no one knows until they walk into the wedding hall.

Her own view: keep working

The most personal moment came when she described her outlook. "Women these days build wealth through their own efforts," she said, adding that even if she marries, she wants to keep earning and developing herself "until I die." The picture she drew is of a life defined by her work and growth rather than by marital status.

Near the end, she said the novel is loved because it makes viewers face their own choices. It leaves open whether marriage makes people happy or unhappy, she said, and she asked the audience directly whether they plan to marry and, if so, to what kind of person.

Background

Born in 1992, Lee graduated from Seoul National University's business school and joined KBS as a 43rd-class announcer in 2016. She and Jun, who is 15 years her senior, met as colleagues at the network, went public with their relationship in 2019 and split in 2022. The video does not mention him; its focus stays on the novel and her own views.