Yoo Ho-Jeong’s return to the small screen after 11 years and her husband Lee Jae-Ryong’s drunk-driving case being forwarded to prosecutors took place around the same time. The photo shows Yoo Ho-Jeong and Lee Jae-Ryong in April 2008. Kyunghyang Shinmun file photo
Actor Yoo Ho-Jeong (57) returned to the small screen for the first time in 11 years with the KBS2 weekend drama ‘I Will Prescribe Love For You’, but she remains silent. It has been more than two months since her husband, actor Lee Jae-Ryong (61), was referred to prosecutors over a drunk-driving accident, and the case has been left in limbo.
Yoo Ho-Jeong’s Instagram has been idle for about three months. The most recent post was an early February promotional upload announcing the first broadcast of ‘I Will Prescribe Love For You’. Yoo wrote, “Please tune in to the first broadcast of ‘I Will Prescribe Love For You’ on January 31.” She also smiled brightly beside the drama poster, signaling a busy slate.
On March 18, Lee Jae-Ryong was referred to prosecutors without detention on suspicion of violating the Road Traffic Act for drunk driving, failure to take necessary measures after an accident, and obstructing a breath-alcohol test. Police concluded there were indications of the so-called ‘sultagi’drinking more immediately after the crash to hinder measurementand applied the charge of obstructing the test.
During the police investigation, Lee stated to the effect that he had drunk four shots of soju before the crash, while denying any attempt at ‘sultagi’.
Lee’s drunk-driving case directly overlapped with Yoo Ho-Jeong’s first small-screen return in 11 years. After ‘Heard It Through the Grapevine’ in 2015, she met viewers again with ‘I Will Prescribe Love For You’. She also appeared on the SBS variety program ‘Same Bed, Different Dreams 2’, aired on February 24, sharing their daily married life.
However, since Lee Jae-Ryong’s drunk-driving accident, she has neither been active on social media nor added separate external event engagements.
The drama continues to air every Saturday and Sunday, and in the episode broadcast on the 16th, a scene of Yoo Ho-Jeong’s character undergoing cancer surgery aired; yet she has not appeared outside the work itself.
Lee Jae-Ryong married Yoo Ho-Jeong in 1995, and they are now in their 31st year of marriage. His license was revoked over a drunk-driving accident in 2003, and in 2019 he damaged a standing sign while intoxicated and received a suspended indictment (deferred prosecution) on property damage charges.
