[OSEN=Jang Woo-young] Former Fromis_9 group member Roh Ji-sun has revealed the reasons behind her retirement from the entertainment industry.
On the 11th, YouTube channel ‘Min Sae-rom’s Open Studio’ released a video featuring Roh Ji-sun titled, “Don’t Experience Card Loans! Life Advice from an Idol Turned Career Transitioner.”
In the video, when asked about her current status, Roh Ji-sun shared, “When asked about my recent life, I lightly say that what you see is what you get, but I’ve been working hard on my SNS activities. After leaving the group, I tried to ‘look at myself objectively,’ but I realized I didn’t have a portfolio. I felt I needed to build one in any field, and since SNS was the direct way, I suppose I casually say that’s all there is.”
Roh Ji-sun explained, “I am naturally this kind of person, and it feels like I’m digging deep into it. Playing along with the image people already know might be a bit of a shortcut, but I wanted to be a bit more bold. I had never truly shown ‘myself.’ I was Roh Ji-sun who was someone somewhere, and I wanted to show the real ‘Roh Ji-sun.’ So I think many people might not even realize it’s me.”
Regarding her idol days, she said, “I dreamed about it immensely and thought my own talent was somewhat ambiguous at the time. Still, since I wanted to do it so badly, I decided to go all-in by dropping out of middle school, doing part-time jobs, and attending academies to prepare. After failing multiple times, I finally appeared on an audition program and won first place at a time I thought was the end for me.”
She added, “However, about a year into promotions, the manipulation controversy broke out. I thought I earned first place through hard work, but I was told it wasn’t the case. I always had a strong desire to accomplish something honorably, but knowing this position wasn’t honorable for myself and that there was some outside interference left me feeling very confused.”
In particular, Roh Ji-sun confessed, “I promoted as an idol until I was 27 or 28, and I couldn’t keep relying on my parents and older brother until then. I had to live right away, so I looked into getting a loan. Without a job or income, loans weren’t available. When performing on stage, the company handles things so it somehow works out, but when loans were blocked, card loans became an option. I didn’t even care to look at the interest rate; seeing that they would give me 3 million won immediately made me think I could survive, so I took it.”
Roh Ji-sun revealed, “It snowballed. I took out a card loan once, and as the limit increased, the cycle of borrowing more to pay off the previous one continued. I paid it all off a year after leaving the group. It wasn’t in the hundreds of millions, but I paid back my brother, settled the card loans, and restoring my credit rating was really tough.”
