Choo Sung-hoon opens up about financial struggles during COVID-19: 'I had no work at all'

Fighter and broadcaster Choo Sung-hoon has opened up about the financial hardship he faced when work dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A video titled "Shibuya Real Talk Duo (ft. My Big-Shouldered Brother Swings)" was recently uploaded to his YouTube channel.

In the video, Choo drew laughs when he answered "yakuza" to a question about what he would have done had he not become an athlete.

"I had great athletic instincts and my father was scary, so I went into judo and ended up on this path," he said. "I'm really grateful to my father for that. Life is interesting because of stories like this."

Choo then recalled a period when a lack of work left him in financial difficulty. "There was a stretch of three to four years when I had no work," he said. "It was incredibly tough. It was during COVID-19 — I really had no work at all."

At the time, Choo was living in Hawaii with his wife Yano Shiho and daughter Choo Sarang. "Rent in Hawaii is incredibly expensive. I kept wondering how I was going to pay it," he said. "And I had to keep sending my child to school — I had a lot on my mind."

"I couldn't tell my wife," he added. "I'm the one who has to bring in the money. Having no work was just so hard."

Meanwhile, Choo married Japanese model Yano Shiho in 2009, and the couple have a daughter, Choo Sarang. The family relocated from Japan to Hawaii in 2018 for their daughter's education. Their Hawaii home, which has been featured on television, spans about 240 square meters and was valued at 7.2 billion won ($5.22 million) as of 2019, with monthly maintenance fees alone reaching 3 million won.