Actor Ha Young faces backlash for repeatedly boasting about great-grandfather now embroiled in pro-Japanese collaboration controversy

Actor Ha Young has been swept up in controversy over her great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho's alleged pro-Japanese collaboration, with claims circulating online that she boasted about her family background more than 80 times across broadcasts and media appearances. The backlash has centered on accusations that she effectively "exhumed" her own past by repeatedly drawing attention to it.

Posts titled "Ha Young apparently bragged about her family over 80 times" spread rapidly Sunday across online communities including Theqoo. While the exact count has not been verified, Ha Young did introduce her great-grandfather and other family members' medical careers on multiple public occasions.

On Aug. 7, Ha Young appeared on the KBS 2TV variety program "Oktapbang-ui Munje-a" and revealed that her family has produced doctors across four generations — her great-grandfather, grandfather, father and older sister. "My great-grandfather opened the first Western medicine clinic in Hanyang and also treated Emperor Gojong," she said.

Following those remarks, it emerged that her great-grandfather was Ahn Sang-ho (1872–1927), a physician who practiced during the Japanese colonial period, triggering the pro-Japanese collaboration controversy.

Ha Young had made similar remarks before.

In a promotional video for the Netflix Korea YouTube channel released Aug. 6, she said, "My great-grandfather was a doctor. I've heard he was the first to open a Western medicine practice in Hanyang."

In an interview published in January last year to mark the premiere of the Netflix series "The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call," Ha Young also said, "I've heard my great-grandfather was the first doctor to open a Western medicine clinic in Hanyang."

The repeated boasting drew sharp reactions online. "Something that was bound to come out finally has," one user wrote. Others said she "mentioned it in every project she appeared in" and that she had "gone around exhuming her own past."

As the controversy over her great-grandfather's alleged pro-Japanese activities spread beyond control, Ha Young issued a handwritten letter Wednesday apologizing for her remarks. "I had only a fragmentary understanding of my great-grandfather's life, based on stories passed down through my family," she wrote. "Shamefully, I brought up my great-grandfather's story as something to be proud of on multiple occasions, without knowing the full picture."

She added that she would "look more carefully into my family's history and the era it took place in, and approach history with greater care going forward."