“Why didn’t he give Korean beef to the manager who worked hard for 16 years?” ... Go Young-wook takes another swipe at Yoo Jae-suk’s “good deed” stories

[Financial News] Go Young-wook (50), a former member of the group Roo’ra who served prison time for sex crimes against minors and was driven out of the entertainment industry, has sparked public outrage with another round of public attacks on broadcaster Yoo Jae-suk (54). He made one-sided claims to the effect that stories about Yoo’s holiday gifts were “just for show.”
On the 6th, Go posted a screenshot of an article on his social media account (X, formerly Twitter) saying that Yoo gives Korean beef to around 100 acquaintances every holiday. Go said he had heard the story over a meal with an acquaintance who had worked as Yoo’s manager for 16 years, and claimed: “That younger guy said, ‘My wish is to get a Korean beef gift from Jae-suk hyung just once,’ so I asked him about it, and he said he’d never received one at all.”
He added: “It doesn’t sound like Yoo, who is said to look after the people around him so attentively. Why did he never send one to the manager who worked hardest by his side for 16 years?” He also said, “I wonder if he only sends Korean beef to people whose stories about his good deeds will get out publicly.”
The claim, however, is merely Go’s one-sided account of what he says he heard from an acquaintance; it contains neither an official response from Yoo’s side nor direct confirmation of the facts from the manager in question. The public response included a wave of criticism that he was “maliciously spreading unverified private conversations.”
This is the third time this year that Go has publicly taken aim at Yoo. In July, he criticized a moment on a TV program when Yoo said, “Please let everyone be happy and become rich,” asking, “How much richer does he have to get to be satisfied? His greed knows no bounds.” Last month, when Yoo canceled a broadcast recording because of a high fever and flu-like aches, Go posted a sarcastic message saying, “This gives him a chance to get some proper rest,” and was roundly criticized.
Go, who debuted with Roo’ra in 1994, was indicted while in custody on charges of raping and indecently assaulting three minors between 2010 and 2012. In 2013, the Supreme Court upheld his sentence of two years and six months in prison. He was also ordered to have his personal information disclosed for five years and to wear an electronic location-tracking device (ankle monitor) for three years, earning the ignominy of becoming the first entertainer to wear one.
After completing his sentence, he was released from prison in 2015 and repeatedly tried to resume his activities through social media. However, amid policies restricting sex offenders’ use of the platforms and a flood of user reports, his Instagram account was shut down after just one day. His YouTube channel, launched in 2024, was also deleted after just two weeks.
The prevailing view online is that a person facing public condemnation for a sex-crime record is continuing to make baseless attacks on a famous broadcaster who is active in the industry, while seeking attention through “noise marketing.” Netizens have reacted coldly, saying, “He’s distorting someone else’s good deeds while forgetting his own wrongdoing,” and, “He should stop begging for public attention with one-sided revelations.”
[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter