Song Ji-eun's In-Laws Accused of Playing Favorites, and Actor Yoon So-hee Is Taking the Heat

A year-old family holiday video has become the latest front in a widening controversy around YouTuber Park Wi, and actor Yoon So-hee is now catching stray fire for simply being in it.

The video in question was uploaded to Park Wi's YouTube channel Weeraacle in September 2024 under the title "Our First Chuseok at My In-Laws' Home." It shows Park Wi, his wife Song Ji-eun (formerly of K-pop group Secret), his parents, and Yoon So-hee, known as an adopted daughter figure of Park Wi's father, veteran TV producer Park Chan-hong, sharing a holiday meal together. At the time, the clip drew little attention. That changed recently when it began recirculating across online communities in the wake of a separate, bigger controversy involving Park Wi.

What the video shows, and what people are reading into it

Viewers who revisited the footage pointed to several moments they found off. Before the meal, Park Wi led a prayer in which he named Yoon So-hee before Song Ji-eun, who was his fiancée at the time. His exact words, as widely quoted online: "Dear God, thank you for letting our beloved So-hee, Ji-eun, me, Mom, and Dad share this happy time together." Critics noted that his own future wife came second.

Others flagged that during the meal, Song Ji-eun appeared to be using different tableware from the rest of the family, while Park Wi's parents and Yoon So-hee used matching sets. Park Chan-hong also praised Yoon So-hee's intelligence in front of Song Ji-eun, specifically mentioning her KAIST background. And when Park Wi's younger brother joined via video call, he greeted only Yoon So-hee, not Song Ji-eun.

Adding fuel: Yoon So-hee had already arrived at the house before Song Ji-eun, dressed in pajamas, as if at home. Park Wi himself joked on camera that "with So-hee here like that, it feels like I've come to my dad's daughter's house." Song Ji-eun responded with a dry "like she was always here."

Taken individually, each of these details is easy to explain away. Taken together, they've convinced a portion of viewers that Song Ji-eun was made to feel like an outsider in her future in-laws' home. Whether the video actually shows mistreatment, or just an unusually close family dynamic, is genuinely hard to say from the footage alone, and many commenters pushed back against reading too much into it.

Yoon So-hee becomes the target

Regardless of that debate, Yoon So-hee's social media pages have been flooded with hostile comments. "Are you a sister-in-law or something?" "Why are you going to someone else's house for the holiday?" "What even is an adopted daughter in this day and age?" "Bizarre relationship." Some comments went further, implying she had done deliberate harm.

Yoon So-hee has not publicly responded. The criticism directed at her is, by most reasonable readings, misplaced, she didn't produce the video, script the prayer, or choose the tableware. But online outrage rarely distributes itself fairly, and she became a convenient focal point.

For context: Yoon So-hee is not the only person Park Chan-hong has informally taken under his wing. Actor Park Jin-hee, who worked with him on the KBS drama Bidan-hyang Kkotmu in 2001, has spoken publicly about their father-daughter bond for years. Park Chan-hong delivered a speech at her wedding, and Park Wi has referred to Park Jin-hee as a "real older sister" on his channel. The relationship structure itself is not new, what's new is the scrutiny.

How this connects to the KTX incident

The reason any of this is being re-examined now is Park Wi's own doing. On August 21, he posted CCTV footage to Weeraacle showing a moment from August 14 when his wheelchair got caught on a community service worker's foot as he was exiting a KTX train, causing him to fall. The video went up without the segment where the worker apologized, a detail that only came out afterward.

The backlash was swift. Critics argued that uploading footage of a subordinate worker's mistake to a channel with over a million subscribers, without including his apology, was disproportionate and damaging. Park Wi subsequently apologized, writing that he "failed to consider the position of the worker who had done his best to help me and apologized sincerely." He announced he was pausing his YouTube activities, stepped down from his role as a Seoul City promotional ambassador, and had scheduled speaking engagements cancelled.

His subscriber count dropped below the million mark as viewers left. Both Park Wi and Song Ji-eun eventually disabled comments on their social media. Song Ji-eun has since resumed limited public activity through Christian broadcasting; Park Wi has stayed quiet.

The collateral damage spread further. Comedian Kim Ki-ri, who introduced Park Wi and Song Ji-eun to each other through their shared church, found himself targeted by angry commenters once that backstory resurfaced. His wife Moon Ji-in's personal channel received hostile messages too, and Kim Ki-ri restricted comments on some of his own posts.

The Chuseok video and everything around it may not constitute proof of anything. But in the current climate around Park Wi, it didn't need to.