MBC variety show Sora and Jinkyung grabbed viewers from its premiere with candid confessions and a reunion 15 years in the making. Model-turned-TV personality Lee So-ra opened up about the fallout from extreme dieting, and she also shared the honest feelings that surfaced as she and Hong Jin-kyung finally faced each other again after years apart.
The April 26 broadcast of Sora and Jinkyung followed former best friends Lee So-ra and Hong Jin-kyung—who hadn’t kept in touch for about 15 years—as they reunited and set their sights on the Paris Fashion Week runway. From episode one, their laughter-and-tears, real-life friendship struck a chord.
Lee So-ra spoke frankly about the brutal weight control she endured during her fashion model days. "I went on really extreme diets. For two weeks, I once ate only a can of tuna a day, and for fifteen days I ate just one apple and lost 8 kg," she confessed. She continued, "My body was shaking, and I wondered if I might die like this. That memory still lingers as a kind of trauma."
Looking at a photo from the 1992 inaugural Supermodel Contest, Lee recalled, "You can see all the bones there. That was the lowest weight of my life." Even so, she added with a bittersweet smile, "It was only possible because I was young." Explaining why she decided to do the show, Lee said, "I don’t want to go back to modeling, but I wanted to wrap up my trauma about being a fashion model—with a smile." She chose to face her old scars head-on and take on something new.
Hong Jin-kyung also addressed why the two drifted apart. "Back then, there was a circle of older sisters I was close with," she said, mentioning that she often met with the late Choi Jin-sil, comedian Lee Young-ja, singer-actress Uhm Jung-hwa, and comedian Jung Sun-hee. She continued, "It’s not that we fell out. Everyone went through big things and got exhausted, and I think distance formed naturally." Lee So-ra agreed: "It was a tough time for all of us. I think we just wanted to step away for a bit."
Reuniting after 15 years, the two carried on an earnest conversation despite the initial awkwardness. When Hong said, "I don’t even know what we should talk about," Lee asked, "Why do you think we couldn’t meet for 15 years? We could have met if we tried," looking back on the time that had passed.
Packed with raw confessions and the restoration of a long-standing friendship from its very first episode, Sora and Jinkyung signaled a strong start with a peak viewership rating of 4.8% (per Nielsen Korea).