Song Hye-rim
Song Hye-rim | |
|---|---|
| Died |
May 18, 2002 (aged 63) |
| Other names | 성혜림 |
| Occupation | actor, dancer |
Song Hye-rim is a North Korean woman, who was one of the mistresses of the late leader of North Korea Kim Jong-il.[1]
Song married Lee Pyong, a researcher, in 1958, when she was nineteen years old.[2] She bore him a daughter, completed a degree in film studies, and became a popular actor.
In the late 1960s she met Kim Jong-il, three years her junior, and son of North Korea's leader, Kim Il-sung.[2] They began a secret affair. Kim was desperate to keep his affair secret, because he too was already married, to Hong Il-chon, a wife his father had picked for him.
The pair move in together, in 1968, the year Hong Il-chon bears Kim his first child. Song and Kim secretly live together for several more years. Song gets pregnant, and bears him Kim Jong-nam, while she is still married.[1][3][4]
By 1974 Kim has divorced his first wife, and his father forces him to marry Kim Young-suk.[4] Shortly thereafter Kim Jong-il goes to live with another mistress, Ko Yong-hui. According to Daily NK English Kim Jong-il's younger sister, Kim Kyung Hee, visits Song, with bad news. She tells Song she has to leave the mansion, and she has to surrender her young son to her. Due to the stress of the break-up, losing her child, and losing her home, she begins to experience mental health issues so severe she is sent to Moscow for treatment. According to Daily NK English her mental health issues grow so serious she spends most of the next three decades in Moscow, where she dies in 2002. Originally she is buried under a tombstone, in Russian, identifying her with a Russian name, but, by 2009, Daily NK English reports her son, Kim Jong-nam, had repaired or replaced her tombstone, so it bore her real name.[4]
Radio Free Asia interviewed Kim Yong-soon, a defector from North Korea, when she published I Was Sung Hye Rim's Friend.[3] She said she and her family were imprisoned because she was suspected of talking about Song's relationship with Kim Jong-il, and that she bore him a son.
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1
"North Korea's secretive 'first family'". BBC News. 2010-09-21. Archived from the original on 2012-10-23. Retrieved 2026-01-01.
Reports say she has worked in the country's propaganda department, with responsibility for literary affairs.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "The Anatomy of Kim Jong Il". Daily NK English. 2005-08-14. Retrieved 2026-01-01.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Jailed For Ties to Kim Mistress". Radio Free Asia. 2009-02-06. Retrieved 2026-01-01.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2
Sohn Kwang Joo (2009-07-29). "Kim Jong Il's Secret Mistress' Grave Revealed at Last". Daily NK English. Retrieved 2026-01-01.
She was originally the wife of Lee Pyong, a researcher at Kim Il Sung University whose father was Lee Ki Young, a famous novelist during the late Japanese colonial period who entered North Korea after the liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945. As a result primarily of her being married, Kim Jong Il tried to hide his relationship with her from his father for some time.