A Korean star spoke about the prejudice she faced in the past, including the reason her in-laws were opposed to her marriage.
On August 1st, a video titled “A Day When I Shared Life Stories from Visiting a PD’s Home, Including a Matchmaking Meeting and Boyfriend’s Parents Opposing Our Relationship” was released on model and actress Jang Yoon Ju‘s YouTube channel.
In the video, Jang Yoon Ju recalled the time before her marriage, saying, “There was opposition from my in-laws.” She added, “Even before, when a boyfriend introduced me to his parents, most of them viewed me unfavorably because I was a model.”
Jang Yoon Ju said, “At that time, unlike now, perceptions of models were very different. Many opposed our relationship because of prejudice against the profession, and I was deeply hurt and cried a lot over it. The hardest part was that I wasn’t welcomed even before they got to know me as a person.”
She continued, “When my husband told his parents that he wanted to marry someone, I heard that my mother-in-law worried, saying, ‘Would it be okay for someone with that kind of job to come into our family?’”
Jang Yoon Ju added, “I appeared on the EBS program Mother’s Story with my mother, which showed our unpretentious daily life and how we lived growing vegetables on the rooftop. My husband recommended the program to his parents, saying, ‘She’s not indulgent or materialistic; she actually grew up more modestly than we did.’ After watching the show, my mother-in-law said, ‘I think I had prejudices,’ and opened her heart.”
Jang Yoon Ju married businessman Jung Seung Min, who is four years her junior, in 2015. They have one daughter.