YouTuber Park Wi resigns Seoul ambassadorship 10 months early after backlash over CCTV video

Park Wi, the wheelchair-using YouTuber and disability advocate married to former Secret member Song Ji-eun, resigned from his position as a Seoul Metropolitan Government promotional ambassador on the 27th, roughly 10 months before his term was set to end. The resignation comes after more than a week of mounting criticism over how he handled the public disclosure of a fall he suffered while disembarking a KTX high-speed train.

Seoul city confirmed that Park Wi contacted the city on the afternoon of the 27th to communicate his intention to step down voluntarily. The city said it would complete the formal process through its internal approval procedures.

The incident and the backlash

The sequence of events began on the 14th, when Park Wi was exiting a KTX train in his wheelchair and the wheel caught the foot of a civil service worker assisting him on a portable ramp, causing him to fall. A week later, on the 21st, he published CCTV footage of the incident on his YouTube channel Weeraclе, which has around one million subscribers. Park Wi said at the time that his intention was to raise awareness about safety risks that disabled people face during transit and to prevent similar accidents from recurring.

The video drew immediate controversy. Critics argued that broadcasting footage identifying a civil service worker who had been trying to help, and whose mistake was widely characterized as an honest accident, to an audience of that size was disproportionate and unfair. The situation was compounded by the revelation that Park Wi had already received an apology from the worker shortly after the fall, prompting questions about what purpose the public disclosure then served. Additional scrutiny fell on how Park Wi had obtained the CCTV footage in the first place.

Facing the criticism, Park Wi made the video private and issued an apology, acknowledging that he had not adequately considered the civil service worker's position. But the apology did not contain the backlash.

Fallout beyond the channel

The controversy quickly spread to his public role. On the 25th, a formal complaint was submitted through the national public petition platform Minwon 24 asking Seoul city to examine whether Park Wi's conduct constituted grounds for dismissal under the city's promotional ambassador ordinance, and whether it remained appropriate for him to continue in the role.

Scheduled appearances also began to fall away. A lecture at the 2026 Seoul Youth Policy Network Insight series and a talk concert organized by the Gangnam Cultural Foundation, both planned for the 27th, were cancelled. Online, earlier content and past statements from Park Wi were resurfaced and re-examined as part of the broader wave of criticism.

Park Wi had been appointed to the ambassadorship in June of last year, with a two-year term running through June of next year. Seoul city had specifically cited his personal experience as the basis for appointing him to promote the city's barrier-free environment and its welfare and youth policy initiatives, making the subject matter of the controversy particularly pointed.

His resignation comes before the city reached any formal determination on dismissal. Whether the sustained scrutiny continues to affect his content work on Weeraclе remains to be seen.