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On June 19, 2025, the South Korean media outlet New Daily reported on the legal proceedings against Kim Soo-hyun concerning brand damage from his ongoing dating controversy linked to the late actress Kim Sae-ron. As per the report, 16 brands had signed brand ambassadorships with the actor, and all of them have either filed or considered filing lawsuits against the actor.
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The brands that filed a lawsuit against the actor charged him with image damage caused to the brand following the exposé by Garosero Research Institute. Some brands also highlighted Kim Soo-hyun's breach of contract and other harm he had caused to the brands' reputation. Below are the brands and the penalties that their lawsuits would demand the actor pay for these charges:
- 850 million KRW - Cuckoo Electronics
- 2.03 billion KRW - Cuckoo Homesys
- 510 million KRW - Trendmaker & DINTO
- 3.96 billion KRW - FromBIO
Therefore, the actor's total damages from all current lawsuits filed by brands amount to 7.34 billion KRW.
All you need to know about the ongoing controversy between Kim Soo-hyun and late Kim Sae-ron
On March 11, 2025, Garosero Research Institute released a YouTube report exposing the alleged six-year-long relationship between Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Sae-ron. The two shared a twelve-year age gap, and according to the report, Sae-ron was only 15 years old when Soo-hyun, who was 27 years old, started a relationship with her.
This led to grooming allegations against the actor. Additionally, the report accused the actor and his agency of putting financial pressure on the actress. In 2019, following the establishment of Soo-hyun's agency Gold Medalist, Kim Sae-ron was housed under the same and also participated as the agency's co-founder.
Therefore, in 2022, during Kim Sae-ron's DUI incident, the agency helped her pay the compensation fee of 700 million KRW, which the actress promised to pay off slowly, according to Garosero Research Institute. Kim Sae-ron later left Gold Medalist, and in 2024, the agency demanded that the actress pay back the debt as soon as possible.
However, since she wasn't financially stable to do the same, she reportedly tried to reach out to Soo-hyun to better understand the situation. But the actor allegedly didn't provide any response. With the growing pressure to settle the debt, Garosero Research Institute reported that the actress had taken her own life on February 16, 2025, which falls on the actor's birthday.
The Gold Medalist and Soo-hyun denied these allegations and expressed that though the two were in a relationship, it started only after Kim Sae-ron became a major. Additionally, they also claimed that Kim Soo-hyun was never directly involved in the financial conflict between the agency and the actress.
Regardless, Garosero Research Institute has been continuously releasing pictures, videos, and other pieces to further prove the underage relationship between the two. Kim Sae-ron's family and Kim Soo-hyun have filed lawsuits against each other, and no proceedings regarding the same have been revealed yet.
