'Little PSY' Hwang Min-woo Reveals the Dark Side of Gangnam Style Fame: Hate Comments About His Vietnamese Mom Made Him Regret Showbiz

Hwang Min-woo was eight years old when he appeared in PSY's Gangnam Style music video, and within days of the clip going live, he became an international sensation known as 'Little PSY.' What came after, he told MBN's talk show Dongchimi this past Saturday, was considerably harder than it looked.

The now 21-year-old described how he was recruited for the video just two or three days before filming began. "PSY told me to just dance freely next to him, and that's where the moves came from," he said. "At the time I didn't really know who PSY was, or even what a music video was. But once it was released, I became known as Little PSY."

The Gangnam Style video has since surpassed 5.9 billion views, and at its peak Hwang Min-woo performed across 13 countries. He laughed recalling the scale of it: "I'm embarrassed to say it myself, but the response was enormous."

But the popularity carried a cost he didn't discuss much at the time. As the initial wave of attention faded, criticism began to mount, some of it pointed at the 'Little PSY' label itself, with people questioning how long he planned to ride one moment. More damaging, he said, were the comments directed at his mother, who is Vietnamese.

"Back then, attitudes toward multicultural families were not good," Hwang said plainly. "A flood of hateful comments poured in. I could endure the criticism aimed at me, but the things people wrote about my mother were things I can't repeat out loud. At that point I genuinely regretted choosing this path."

The admission reframes what many assumed was a straightforward success story. For a child performer whose career launched on one of the most-watched videos in internet history, the offline reality included navigating prejudice that his family had little power to escape.

He did not linger on the bitterness, though. "That hardship made my mental strength so much stronger," he added, framing the period as something that ultimately built resilience rather than broke it.

Now 21 and active in the trot music scene, Hwang said being around younger performers on the Dongchimi special, titled Does Music Have an Age?, felt natural. He pointed to his younger brother Hwang Min-ho as the reason: "I'm used to it. I'm always with Min-ho, so being around young people feels normal."

MBN's Dongchimi airs every Saturday at 11 p.m. KST.