Why Ha Young’s Family Story Became a Controversy in Korea

Actress Ha Young’s agency has reversed its response to a controversy surrounding her great-grandfather, apologizing after discovering a historical record it had initially dismissed as “groundless.”

On August 11, Beasters Entertainment said further research confirmed that Ha Young’s great-grandfather, physician Ahn Sang-ho, was listed as a council member of the Daejeong Friendship Association in 1916. The admission came just one day after the agency publicly rejected allegations concerning Ahn Sang-ho’s activities during Korea’s Japanese colonial period. The company acknowledged that it had responded before conducting sufficient verification and apologized for creating confusion.

For international readers, the controversy requires some historical context. The Korean expression often translated as “pro-Japanese” in stories like this does not simply mean having favorable views of modern Japan. In this context, it refers to collaboration with or support for Japanese colonial rule over Korea, which lasted from 1910 to 1945.

And that distinction is what turned an otherwise lighthearted celebrity family story into a much more serious debate.

The controversy began with Ha Young talking about her family

Ha Young appeared on KBS2’s Problem Child in House on August 7 and discussed growing up in a family with four generations of medical professionals.

She said her great-grandfather had studied Western medicine in Japan, opened an early Western-style medical practice in Hanyang the historical name for Seoul and had treated Emperor Gojong. Her grandfather, father and older sister also followed careers in medicine, she explained.

The story initially attracted attention as an unusual piece of family history. But viewers soon began researching the physician she was describing, identifying him as Ahn Sang-ho. Historical records then circulated showing Ahn Sang-ho connected to the Daejeong Friendship Association. When Korean media asked Ha Young’s agency about those claims on August 10, Beasters Entertainment confirmed that Ahn was her great-grandfather but described allegations concerning pro-Japanese activities as “groundless.”

That answer did not survive 24 hours.

What the agency now acknowledges

In its revised statement, the company said it had discovered an actual record listing Ahn Sang-ho among the Daejeong Friendship Association’s council members in 1916.

The agency apologized for answering too quickly and said the episode had reminded it of the need for careful verification when discussing historical facts and an individual’s record. It added that Ha Young herself felt “heavy-hearted” about the controversy.

Importantly, the revised statement confirms the council-member record. It should not automatically be expanded into claims about every action or accusation now circulating about Ahn online. That distinction matters in responsible reporting.

What was the Daejeong Friendship Association?

This is where the controversy becomes more understandable to readers outside Korea.

The Academy of Korean Studies’ Encyclopedia of Korean Culture defines the organization, also known as the Daejeong Industrial Friendship Association, as a pro-Japanese organization established in Seoul in 1916. The encyclopedia says its activities included encouraging Koreans to accommodate colonial policies and promoting closer integration between Koreans and Japanese under colonial rule.

Academic research provides additional context. A study published through Sungkyunkwan University’s Daedong Institute for Korean Studies found that the association promoted naeseon yunghwa, or “Japan-Korea harmony,” while cooperating with policies of the Japanese Government-General. It later supported policies and political ideas closely aligned with the colonial regime.

So the existence of Ahn’s name on the organization’s leadership list is historically significant.

At the same time, membership in such an organization and an official historical designation of an individual as a collaborator are not exactly the same thing. Korean reporting notes that Ahn is not listed in the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities’ well-known Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators.

That nuance is important: the agency has now acknowledged a documented organizational connection, while broader judgments about Ahn’s complete historical record require examination of multiple sources.

Ahn Sang-ho also had a significant medical career

The controversy has produced an uncomfortable collision between two sides of the same family history.

Historical records identify Ahn as an early Western-trained Korean physician. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture records him as a medical-school instructor who also entered the royal court as a commissioned physician during the final years of the Korean Empire.

Other medical-history sources describe him as a prominent figure in Korea’s early modern medical community. He served as vice president of an association of Korean doctors in 1908 and was involved in medical education at a time when Western medicine was rapidly developing in Korea. Those achievements do not negate the colonial-era record that has now emerged. Nor does the latter mean every claim circulating online about him should automatically be accepted.

The more accurate picture is simply more complicated than the family anecdote initially presented on television.

Why the agency’s first response became part of the story

The controversy is increasingly about more than Ha Young’s ancestry.

One Korean commentary argued that the central issue should not be inherited guilt for something a great-grandparent did more than a century ago, but the way historical claims are presented and verified in the present. It specifically criticized the agency for using the definitive phrase “groundless” before checking whether the record existed.

That is arguably the most important distinction for international coverage. Ha Young was born generations after Korea’s colonial period and is not personally responsible for the choices of an ancestor. But once a family history becomes part of a celebrity’s public story and questions about that history arise an agency’s factual response can be scrutinized on its own merits.

Here, Beasters Entertainment has effectively acknowledged that its verification process failed.

Public reaction remains sensitive

Korean media described the response to the apology as chilly, particularly because the controversy surfaced only days before August 15, Korea’s Liberation Day, when the end of Japanese colonial rule is commemorated nationally.

The timing has inevitably made historical questions surrounding the case more emotionally charged. But the reaction also exposes a difficult question for celebrity culture: where does legitimate historical scrutiny end and punishment of a descendant for an ancestor’s actions begin?

The two are not necessarily the same. It is reasonable to investigate a historical claim after it has been publicly raised. It is also possible to do so without treating someone born generations later as personally responsible for conduct that occurred long before their lifetime.

The controversy comes just as Ha Young reaches a bigger global audience

The timing is particularly difficult professionally.

Ha Young currently stars opposite Jung Hae-in in Netflix’s new romantic comedy Our Sticky Love, which premiered globally on August 7. She plays Go Eun-sae, an elite prosecutor who loses her memory and finds herself living with a boxing coach who claims to be her boyfriend.

That means the controversy arrived only days after what is one of the largest international leading roles of her career.

Her agency’s reversal may therefore become more visible outside Korea than a typical domestic entertainment controversy, especially as international viewers encounter unfamiliar terminology surrounding Korea’s colonial history.

For those readers, the clearest summary is also the least sensational one:

Ha Young spoke proudly about her family’s medical history. Questions then emerged about her great-grandfather’s involvement with a colonial-era organization. Her agency initially denied the allegations before confirming that one important historical record the 1916 council-member listing was genuine.

The argument over what that record means may continue.

But the agency has already conceded one mistake of its own: it should have checked before saying the evidence did not exist.