South Korea’s prosecutor on Friday said that the day prior, the actor had been indicted but not detained, Agence France-Presse reported. His legal woes stem from allegations from five years ago that he had inappropriately touched a woman’s body.
South Korean television station JTBC reported that the actor said he’d “held hands with the woman to show the way around a lake. He said that while he was issuing an apology, it was not an admission of guilt.
“I just held her hand to guide the way around the lake. I apologized because [the woman] said she wouldn’t make a fuss about it but it doesn’t mean that I admit the charges,” O said in the statement.
Deadline reported that O’s accuser had appealed to reopen her case after it was closed earlier on in 2022.
Squid Game was Netflix’s most successful launch of all time and remains immensely popular. Some 111 million viewers tuned in within the first month of its 2021 premiere. O portrayed the oldest participant in the hit survival drama, battling against hundreds of other impoverished players in a deadly game for a huge monetary prize.
After the news broke, Seoul’s culture ministry pulled a government commercial about its regulatory innovation that features O.
The actor, whose career spans five decades, made history in January as the first Korean actor to earn a Golden Globe award. He beat out other powerhouse players like Succession’s Kieran Culkin, Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein, and Billy Crudup of The Morning Show in the contest for the Best Supporting Actor in Television award.
Last fall, O told a South Korean TV station that Squid Game had changed his life.
“I feel like I’m in the air. So I’m trying to calm myself down now so I can restrain myself,” he said, adding: “When I go to cafes or other places, I become self-conscious. Being a famous actor was hard too.”
Others in the South Korean film industry have also been accused of sexual assault, including actors Oh Dal-su and Cho Jae-hyun. Before his death in 2020, famed filmmaker Kim Ki-duk defended himself against similar allegations amid South Korea’s own #MeToo movement.
Newsweek reached out to Netflix for comment.
Update 11/25/22, 10:57 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.
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