Seo Yu-ri's boyfriend speaks out: "PD Choi Byung-gil, repay the money like a man" [Star Issue]

*This content was translated by AI.

A former boyfriend of broadcaster Seo Yu-ri has directly responded to a plea from her ex-husband, PD Choi Byung-gil.

On the 26th, Seo Yu-ri posted a lengthy message. The post, titled "Reply to Mr. Choi Byung-gil," appears to have been written by her younger boyfriend, a man working in the legal field.

The writer stated regarding PD Choi Byung-gil's claims, "Although he maintains his intention to pay the settlement, expressing an intention and actually fulfilling it are entirely different matters. Emphasizing consistency in a situation where he ultimately did not show up at the third scheduled meeting lacks persuasiveness."

He continued, "A debtor cannot dictate the method of contact. The repayment schedule and method must be proposed first by the debtor, and it is up to the creditor to decide whether to accept them. It is difficult to accept justifying blocking contact by reversing this order."

The writer added, "Continuously releasing work activities and results while claiming an inability to even cover communication costs is inconsistent. If there is a will to repay, there must be at least a minimal plan and execution. The expression of 'lack of ability' is merely a cover for a situation where promises cannot be kept."

He further emphasized, "The counterpart to this debt is someone who was once family. Before the law, one must keep promises based on human ethics. Reopening contact and sitting down at the promised meeting is the minimum responsibility," urging him to repay like a man.

The two married in 2019 but divorced in June 2024. They have faced conflicts over financial issues since the divorce process began.

Seo Yu-ri has claimed that PD Choi Byung-gil repaid only 300 million won out of approximately 600 million won and has demanded payment of the remaining amount. She also stated that she assumed debts totaling approximately 2 billion won during the divorce process and has already repaid a significant portion of them.

Reply to Mr. Choi Byung-gil

Greetings. I am the person standing beside Ms. Seo Yu-ri. I have read the message you posted five days ago multiple times. It is not difficult to discern the intent behind each line without even delving into the spaces between them.

First, I wish to make one thing clear. This message is not written to express emotions, but to correct the facts. The more neatly your words are polished, the more clearly the truth left empty between those sentences becomes visible.

You have proudly claimed that you have never once revoked your intention to pay the settlement. However, expressing an intention and fulfilling a promise are entirely different matters.

There has already been one agreement between you and the creditor's side, and a second, newly refined agreement has also clearly been established since then.

Furthermore, it is also clear that you directly promised the creditor's side that you would not enter into any specific legal procedures. I will not write at length about how that promise was subsequently handled.

However, I wish to note one thing. The image of someone who promised to sit down at the third meeting but ultimately disappeared, yet claims consistency in their intentions, cannot be read naturally from any angle.

The fact that what you have consistently maintained is not an intention to repay, but rather the act of stepping back from the promised meeting itself, I believe readers of this message will understand on their own without my lengthy explanation.

You wrote that you were forced to block contact because the debtor repeatedly insisted that the creditor contact them through a lawyer, yet you violated that request. At this point, I cannot help but note that this is the most inverted part of this message.

The form of contact through a lawyer only gains meaning from the moment the debtor formally appoints an agent and a notice of engagement in the agent's office name reaches the creditor's side.

In a situation where neither the appointment of an agent nor the delivery of an engagement notice exists, justifying blocking contact because the debtor unilaterally designated a contact path for the creditor and the creditor did not follow that designation is nothing more than an attempt to exercise a power not granted to the debtor.

Does someone who is in a position to fulfill a promise have the right to instruct the person waiting for that promise on the form of contact? Rather, the opposite is the natural conclusion of this matter. The debtor is the one who must respectfully propose the repayment schedule, method, and contact path, and the creditor is the one who decides whether to accept that proposal.

Any attempt to construct the justification for blocking contact by reversing this order remains an excuse that no one, except the debtor sending it, can be persuaded by.

I would like to ask one more thing. Which lawyer exactly are you so repeatedly referring to? If you are speaking of your own agent, simply providing a one-line reply regarding the fact of engagement and the name of the office will immediately open the door for negotiation. If you are speaking of the creditor's office, that office has never been closed for a single day, so you can simply reply in writing at this very moment.

Any attempt to justify blocking contact by referring to an ambiguous lawyer that does not fit either side only serves to clearly reveal who is being blocked and who disappeared from the promised meeting.

Regarding your explanation that you cannot pay because you lack the ability to generate income, I must honestly say I stopped and read it again for a long time. If someone who does not know the daily scenes you usually polish and present to the world reads only this message, anyone would feel sorry for your situation.

However, the daily scenes you have directly polished and presented to the world during the same period, the scenes of you working on refining new songs, the thickness of time spent facing equipment, and your consistent efforts to repeatedly release the results of your work, hardly align with the single line in this message claiming an inability to even cover communication costs.

A person's ability is not written in the bank account balance but is engraved in the flow of their daily life, and that flow is a scene that the debtor themselves has been testifying to the world every day, without the creditor needing to look into it.

What is required of someone entering into an agreement is to propose a repayment plan within their capacity in writing and to diligently fulfill it step by step. If you have never shown even a single step, the words "lack of ability" are merely another way of saying you are avoiding your promise.

The appeal written in the final paragraph, not even asking for support but simply asking to be left alone, was read as the most intelligently placed sentence in this entire message. The image of someone who disappeared first from the promised meeting asking the person who waited for them to remain silent cannot be read naturally from any angle.

The right to request silence is granted only to those who kept their promises, not to those who stand aside from the promised meeting to ask the other party. To return the expression you frequently used in the main text as it is: you should repay like a man. Neither your image nor your reputation will be restored by polished public words, but only by the attitude of fulfilling your promise exactly as you promised.

There are people in the world who, even while in debt, ultimately uphold human ethics. When their circumstances do not allow, they politely inform the other party of their situation as they are, and when even a small amount of money comes into their hands, they take that money and go to find the creditor first. In front of such people, the creditor is the one who ends up bowing their head. This is the original nature of how debt flows between people. Where are you standing now?

You have cut off contact, left the promised meeting empty, and are polishing your emotions with public words, asking for silence rather than support. Meanwhile, new songs are being refined, the results of your work are being repeatedly released to the world, and the scenes of your daily life are being neatly organized and publicly revealed. While your time flows in that way, where do you think the time of the person who has been waiting for the promise has gone?

From the position of a man, I would like to make one direct request. A man's weight is not gained from visible daily scenes, nor from the sincerity of polished words. Only when one reaches the position of taking full responsibility for the promise they themselves made with their own mouth does a person finally become worthy of the title they bear.

Finally, I will ask one last question and step back. The person you are now turning your back on was once your person. You sat at the same table under the same roof, and for a period of time, you shared the closest place in life together. This is a promise with someone who was once family, not with anyone else in the world.

It is proper to repay debts to strangers based on human ethics, but have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror while turning your back on a promise with someone you once held closest? Please stand directly in front of that mirror just once.

Reopening the contact you have now closed and sitting down again at the empty place is not something forced by the weight of the law, but the final duty that one who was once a person's family must grant themselves. The promise you are now turning your back on is a promise you must face before any debt in the world. Regaining human weight in front of someone you once held closest is not something done because someone told you to, but something you must do for yourself.

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*This content was translated by AI.