'I Still Can't Speak About It Easily': Lee Seok-hoon Breaks Down 13 Years After His Mother's Death

Singer Lee Seok-hoon revealed on the latest episode of MBC's Playlist 109 that the grief of losing his mother in 2013 has never fully settled, and that guilt, more than longing, is what lingers. "She was the most significant presence in my life, so it's a pain I still can't speak about easily," he said on air, before adding that what he feels most is not simply missing her, but being sorry.

The show, formally titled Oeuireul Beotin Norae, Playlist 109, is a music project built around songs that helped people survive their hardest moments. Each episode collects personal stories tied to those tracks, with the goal of assembling a playlist of 109 songs. The third episode, which aired on the 4th at 9 p.m., brought a noticeably more interior tone than a standard music variety format.

Joining the three regular MCs, Lee Seok-hoon, Lee Jun, and Dindin, was psychiatrist Lee Gwang-min, a familiar face to Korean audiences from the counseling show Divorce Camp. The four spent the episode in the kind of conversation that rarely makes it to primetime: each MC spoke openly about experiences with anxiety, panic attacks, and loss, while Lee Gwang-min listened and responded with measured, practical observations rather than clinical distance.

When Lee Seok-hoon turned to his mother's passing, the weight of it was clear. The confession was less about the facts of the loss and more about the emotional residue, the guilt that has not softened in over a decade. Lee Gwang-min offered counsel directly, and both Lee Jun and Dindin responded with visible recognition, the kind of moment that works on television precisely because it is not performed.

The episode's second half shifted to music. Lee Jun and Dindin performed Lee Gwang-min's own beotimsong, the show's term for a personal anchor song, as a duet, delivering it with an ease and warmth that caught the psychiatrist off guard. Lee Gwang-min, who has spent his career tending to other people's pain, visibly teared up, noting that he too had years he needed to survive. That detail gave the episode its final turn: the counselor, for once, on the receiving end.

Playlist 109 airs on MBC.