Actress Hwang Jung-eum, formerly of the group Sugar, set the record straight about why she briefly reunited with her ex-husband—firmly denying it had anything to do with her second pregnancy—and cleared up the swirling rumors.
On the 10th, Hwang uploaded a YouTube video where she used ChatGPT to look back on her career and life trajectory. Tracing her life graph from her 2002 debut with Sugar to the present, she opened up with unfiltered honesty.
Recalling her early debut days, Hwang said, "It was a time when everything scared me. Even now, it feels like I'm debuting all over again," candidly sharing the nerves she felt starting YouTube. She then mentioned the MBC sitcom High Kick Through the Roof, often cited as her breakout, calling it "the project that made me who I am today."
Looking at the dip on her life graph after marriage, Hwang admitted, "People have an energy about them. When you're in a good mood, everything goes well," adding, "After I got married, my energy was scattered, and because I wasn't in a good place, work didn't go well either." Still, she drew a line, clarifying she doesn’t regret the marriage itself. "If I could go back, I would still get married," she said. "Otherwise, I wouldn’t have met my two sons."
Addressing the period in 2021 when she reunited with her ex-husband, Hwang corrected a major misconception. "People think our relationship recovered because I got pregnant with our second child, but that’s not true," she clarified. "We reconciled and decided to live together again because of our first child. After that, we took a trip to Hawaii, and that’s when we planned and had our second child." She emphasized, "A lot of people think we reunited because I got pregnant with the second, but there wasn’t anything going on in between. That would never happen."
Hwang married former pro golfer-turned-entrepreneur Lee Young-don in 2016, and they have two sons. The couple filed for divorce mediation in 2020 and later reconciled, but in 2024 they entered divorce proceedings again and finalized their divorce in May 2025.