K-pop singer Kang Daniel, who returned to show business last year after a hiatus due to depression and panic disorder, has opened up about being a homebody.
“The longest I’ve stayed home without going outside is about a month… I really, rarely go outside,” he said in the latest episode of South Korean variety show I Live Alone, which features single celebrities and how they live.
The 24-year-old, whose real name is Kang Eui-geon, revealed that he would happily stay home for a year if he could. It appears that self-isolating during a pandemic is no hardship for the former boyband Wanna One member.
Kang, who lives with two cats, has been single since breaking up with girl group Twice’s leader Jihyo, 24, late last year.
The two of them were reportedly too busy to meet, although dating in the public eye must have also taken a toll on their relationship.
In an industry where K-pop idols are often forbidden from dating openly, their relationship had made headlines in August 2019 when entertainment news portal Dispatch had published photos of her going to his place.
The fans’ outcry at that time, combined with a stressful legal tussle Kang was having with his former management agency, led him to post a cry for help on social media: “Someone, please save me.”
He subsequently took a three-month hiatus to seek treatment in December 2019 before returning to show business.
On the show, Kang said he frequently read fake stories online of people seeing him in public, when he knew he had not even stepped out of the house.
“People post these fake sighting stories online with great detail. When that happens, other people are quick to believe those stories to be true,” he said. “Like someone might post, ‘I saw Kang Daniel at Han River and he was littering’ or whatever. And that suddenly becomes the only truth people will believe.”
“I try not to go outside because I don’t want to provide the opportunity of having even more rumours going around. I mean, it already happened to me once…” he said, perhaps alluding to the photos which were taken of him and Jihyo. “So after that, naturally, I choose to stay home.”
Text: Suzanne Sng/The Straits Times