“I held back for fear of being reported” ... Controversy over Go Young-wook’s post saying “I held back from barging into a karaoke room” amid ‘sex crimes against minors’

[Financial News] Go Young-wook, a former member of the group Roo’ra who served a prison sentence for rape and forcible molestation of minors, is facing controversy over a social media post he made after hearing one of his former group’s songs at a karaoke room.
On the 15th, Go posted a short video on his social media account (X, formerly Twitter), along with the message: “A familiar song was playing in the karaoke hallway, and I thought about going in to help sing my part, but held back for fear of being reported.”
The video showed someone singing Roo’ra’s signature hit “3! 4!”, released in 1996, in a karaoke hallway. At the end of the video, Go himself could also be seen murmuring a line from the song before turning away. He had presented the situation—someone else singing a song he had performed in the past—as a humorous anecdote, but criticism poured in online, with many calling his behavior inappropriate.
Go, who debuted as a member of Roo’ra in 1994, was arrested and indicted on charges of raping and forcibly molesting three minors on four occasions between July 2010 and December 2012 at locations including his officetel and car.
In December 2013, the Supreme Court finalized his prison sentence of two years and six months. He was also sentenced to five years of public disclosure and notification of his personal information and, in a first for an entertainer, was ordered to wear an electronic location-tracking device (an ankle monitor) for three years. Go served his sentence in prison and was released in July 2015; his ankle-monitor period ended in 2018.
Since his release, Go’s attempts to resume public activities have repeatedly faced strong public backlash. His Instagram and YouTube accounts, which he had opened earlier, were successively shut down after violating platforms’ policies concerning people with prior sex-crime convictions and following mass reports by users. He currently shares updates about his daily life on X, but the public continues to view coldly the attitude of someone with a serious criminal record who keeps trying to communicate with the public.
[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter