Singer Lee Su-young's son diagnosed with leukemia; painful family history resurfaces

Singer Lee Su-young, 47, has drawn an outpouring of sympathy after revealing that her 16-year-old son is battling leukemia, with the news bringing renewed attention to the hardships she has endured throughout her life.

Lee is well known for having overcome a difficult upbringing to achieve success in the music industry.

She lost her father in a traffic accident when she was in second grade. Her mother later remarried, and Lee has spoken publicly about suffering abuse at the hands of her stepfather.

On a YouTube channel, Lee said her stepfather "was the textbook example of a bad stepfather," recounting how he would physically assault her younger sibling — including stomping on the child — for not doing well in schoolwork. "I was only about a first-year high school student at the time. I had no strength. If I resisted too much, it would be hard on my mother. I kept thinking, what would happen if I didn't protect my sibling," she said. "All I could do was scream and cry until I lost control of myself and collapsed. Things like that happened every single day in ways I can't even put into words — it was unbearable."

Lee went on to achieve major success as a singer in her 20s, but she has also disclosed that she was defrauded of all the money she had saved during that period. On a television program, she said: "I was badly scammed at 30. I lost everything I had earned in my 20s and ended up in debt on top of it."

She said the experience left her with mental health conditions. "I have depression, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. After being defrauded, I started going to the hospital regularly. As of 2021, I had been receiving treatment for eight years," she said.

Meanwhile, Lee announced Monday through the official website of her CBS Music FM radio program "Lee Su-young's Meet at Noon" that her child had fallen suddenly ill before the Chuseok holiday and was subsequently diagnosed with acute T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia while undergoing hospital tests, and had since been admitted and begun treatment. "Right now, my child is holding up well and fighting hard," she wrote.

Lee said that while her child was enduring "tests and treatment that are hard to bear at such a young age," the child was "getting through it with a bravery and strength that surprises even me as a mother." She added that she was doing her best to stay strong and get through each day alongside her child. However, she said she had decided to step away from hosting the program for now, explaining that the expected treatment period was very long and that the intensive chemotherapy in the early stages made it impossible for her to take her eyes off her child even for a moment.

Lee married in 2010 and gave birth to her son the following year.