A memorial to K-pop star Goo Hara is seen at St. Mary's Hospital in Seoul on Monday. Hara was found dead at her home in Seoul on Sunday, police said. The half-dozen people waiting outside a shrine in Seoul on Monday evening seem at a loss. Students wearing puffer coats and middle-aged men in wool jackets loiter and glance around before walking into a hallway lined with funeral flowers.
A young woman smiles in a portrait hanging on the wall. The memorial is for South Korean singer Goo Hara, a former member of the K-pop group Kara, who was found dead in her apartment in Seoul on Sunday — the second K-pop celebrity in less than two months thought to have taken her own life. Police said the cause of the year-old star's death is under investigation and not immediately known.
The police told local media that it is investigating all possibilities, including suicide. Seoul's police commissioner told reporters Monday that a handwritten note had been found in Goo's home. In recent years, as Goo fought a public legal battle against a former boyfriend who allegedly assaulted and blackmailed her, she became a target of intense media attention and cyberbullying.
It is the latest of several recent scandals that have exposed the dark side of the K-pop industry, South Korea's top cultural export. In May, Goo's manager found her unconscious at her house after an apparent suicide attempt. Goo apologized to her fans and vowed to keep up her work. A month later, she publicly discussed her mental health on her Instagram account and urged cyberbullies to show empathy.
Suffering depression "isn't easy," she wrote. The news of Goo's death came days after she had successfully completed a solo tour in Japan. Her single "Midnight Queen" was released Nov. Goo made her debut in at 17, as a member of Kara. With a series of dance hits like "Rock You," "Pretty Girl" and "Honey," the group of five women was among several — along with Wonder Girls and Girls' Generation, all of which debuted around the same time — that helped K-pop leap onto the international stage.
