On Sept. 16, actress Lee Min Jung returned from her two-week trip to Paris to shoot a television commercial. But after shooting her commercial, she did not return to the home of her husband, actor Lee Byung Hun, said a report in the Korea Herald. Instead she returned to her parents' Gangnam home.
An unnamed source told the Korea Herald that the actress was hurt by the recent scandal involving her husband and wanted to stay out of the public eye.
The 32-year-old actress was absent when her husband reported a blackmail attempt to the police on Aug. 28. He said that two women were attempting to blackmail him over a conversation that they recorded on a smartphone. The women were later identified as actress and GLAM member Dahee, 20, and model Lee Ji Yeon, 25. The women allegedly asked for $5 million to withhold the footage, which reportedly involved a conversation in which the 44-year-old actor asked them about their sexual preferences.
The two women were arrested a few days later and charged with attempted blackmail.
Lee Ji Yeon's defense team described the blackmail attempt as her emotional reaction to the break-up of a three-month long affair between the model and Lee Byung Hun. The actor denied that there was any romantic relationship between them. He said that he only knew the young women through a mutual friend and that he had tried to distance himself from them when he knew they were having financial difficulties.
Although he denied cheating on his wife, Lee Byung Hun made a public apology for having acted in any way that might have hurt those he loved.
However, netizens unearthed some Instagram photos that supposedly belonged to the model and allegedly contained gifts given to her by the actor. One featured a bottle of wine from a South American winery he visited. Another featured a cell phone from an advertisement he had done.
Lee Min Jung has made no public announcement about the blackmail incident or the alleged affair. She did post a photo on Instagram recently, which was cryptically captioned "God Only Knows."
The couple married last year in a star-studded wedding that was described as the "wedding of the year." Over 900 guests attended the romantic wedding of the two actors described as Korea's power couple.
Lee Byung Hun has lately acquired international celebrity status with his appearances in two Hollywood films, "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" and "Red 2."
Lee Min Jung was last seen in the drama "Cunning Single Lady."