Cha In-pyo: 'I'm always on the silver-spoon list, but my parents divorced when I was 13'

Actor Cha In-pyo, 58, has opened up about a painful chapter in his family history.

Appearing on the MBC variety program "Oneureul Beotin Norae — Playlist 109," a music-themed talk show, on Tuesday, Cha said he is often included on lists of celebrities born into privilege — but that the reality was far different. "I always end up on the silver-spoon celebrity list, but that's not the case at all," he said. "My parents divorced when I was 13."

He recalled that his father tried to support the children even after the divorce. "There were three brothers, and after our parents split up, we lived with our mother," he said.

He added that life as a single mother in that era carried a heavy social stigma. "It was unimaginable for a woman on her own to raise three children, and the social atmosphere of the 1980s treated everything as the woman's fault," he said.

His mother eventually decided to emigrate.

"My mother said, 'Let's go across the ocean and try living in America,' so when I was 20, my mother, my younger brother and I went to New Jersey," Cha said. "I suddenly became the head of the household. I didn't speak English, and having to look after my mother and brother made me anxious and unsettled."

He described struggling to find steady work. "I went to paint houses but was too unskilled, so I became a painter's assistant. I tried to be a waiter but couldn't communicate, so I ended up as a busboy," he said. "Being pushed to the sidelines over and over, I started to wonder whether I was destined to always be an assistant — someone who could never break into the mainstream."

Cha said his early 20s were the hardest period of his life, and reflected that the pattern had repeated itself throughout his career. "Looking back, the hardest times were always when I was trying to adapt to a new environment," he said. "When I moved from Korea to the United States, when I went from being an actor to writing a novel, when I took on theater for the first time 33 years into my debut — I always felt fear."

The song that carried him through that difficult period was "Yeoreobun" by singer Yun Bok-hee. "About three weeks after arriving in America, I listened to 'Yeoreobun' on repeat and found comfort in it," he said. Cha also revealed an unexpected connection: Yun is a close acquaintance of his wife, actor Shin Ae-ra, and sang at their wedding.

Cha married Shin in 1995. The couple have three children — one son and two daughters.