The boxing “champion couple” on JTBC’s “Divorce Reflection Camp” has ignited a two-stage firestorm: first the husband’s on-air declaration that he cannot divorce because he needs his “slave”; then the discovery that the couple are seasoned TV guests, fueling accusations that the outrage was all an act.
The couple appeared as the third pair of the show’s 25th lineup on the October 15 broadcast. The husband was an early-2000s national rookie boxing champion who became the Korean champion, the Oriental champion, and WBC world No. 9, saying he first picked up boxing in a juvenile detention center. The wife went from office worker to pro boxer, debuting at 29, rising to world champion and women’s world No. 1, and defending her title until age 45 two years ago. The two met as coach and student, and each now runs a boxing gym.
But footage from their home told a different story. The husband lounged in bed issuing orders with gestures alone — meals, laundry, and even socks he had tossed onto the living room floor all fell to his wife. “Who else is supposed to cook if not the wife?” he said, insisting that “since she was born a woman, she does a woman’s work.” The breaking point came in his interview with the production crew: “I can’t get divorced. I need my slave.” Panelist Park Ha-sun was left speechless, while Seo Jang-hoon snapped back, “How could you say such a thing?” and noted their coach-student dynamic seemed to have carried into the marriage.
The husband later shrugged the remark off as a joke his wife understood, but she told producers she was appalled. “It was absurd. Isn’t that demeaning to me as a person?” she said, confiding she feels like she has become her husband’s “hands and feet” and obeys only to avoid a fight.
According to Sports Kyunghyang, the outrage took a sharp turn after the broadcast when online sleuths uncovered the couple’s long television history. In 2013, the same pair appeared on KBS 2TV’s “Hello Counselor” as the “beaten husband,” claiming the world-champion wife had beaten him like a real sparring match for six years — “One session is ten rounds,” he said then of his 53kg frame. Netizens also found appearances on JTBC’s “Human Documentary: Your Story,” EBS’s “Don’t Look for Mom,” and — right before this show — MBC’s “Oh Eun-young Report: Marriage Hell” as a “sparring couple.”
Viewers who had erupted in anger now feel duped. “So I was the only one who got genuinely angry,” one widely shared comment read, with others calling the couple “semi-pro broadcasters” and claiming the episode was staged. The show airs Thursdays at 9:50 p.m. on JTBC. As of publication, neither the couple nor the network had issued a statement about the controversy.
