'I thought my life was over': Queen of Tears' Na Young-hee recounts being kidnapped in Seoul years ago

It was like a scene from her dramas but she had the unfortunate experience of going through it in real life.

In part two of her interview on the YouTube programme Paik Ji-yeon Now uploaded yesterday (May 14), South Korean actress Na Young-hee talked about how she got kidnapped 20 years ago in Seoul.

At the time, the 62-year-old, who starred as Kim Ji-won's onscreen mother in the recently concluded hit drama Queen of Tears, was leaving in her car to go golfing when someone entered through the passenger door.

Thinking it was someone she knew, she looked back only to see an unfamiliar face holding a knife.

"That was when I thought my life was over," she recalled to host Ji-yeon.

According to her, a lot of kidnappings in her Cheongdam-dong neighbourhood happened in broad daylight back then.

"I had a plan with my colleagues prepared, that if something like that happened, I would say, 'I need to pick up Cindy', so everyone would know what the signal meant," she shared.

"But when it actually happened, I couldn't think of anything."

Despite the scary situation, Young-hee remained calm: "I thought, 'Oh, so it's over for me now. So how should I fix this situation?'"

"I was driven around for a few hours and there ended up being four kidnappers."

She recalled how she gave them her credit card: "They were young guys. When I asked, 'Why are you doing this?', they said they needed the money for entertainment purposes…

"I don't know why I said this, but I told them, 'I'm sorry, the adults are responsible for all that. Because you didn't receive love at home and lived with a lot of dissatisfaction, you ended up doing these things.'"

She added: "One of the kidnappers wanted to keep me for another day, and the other didn't agree, wanting to let me go. In the end, I handed them two credit cards. They let me go on the condition that I wouldn't report them."

The kidnappers had covered her face and Young-hee said that she didn't let them remove it out of fear that she would see and remember their faces.

After an eight-hour saga, they dropped her off at Suwon. According to Google maps, the city is about a 30-minute drive from Seoul.

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"When I was inside the car, I felt rather calm. However after they released me, I was overwhelmed with fear. I couldn't move my legs," Young-hee shared, adding that the trauma was so severe that she couldn't enter elevators or take taxis for 10 years.

In Queen of Tears, Young-hee played Kim Seon-hwa, who married into the famed Hong family, owner of the wealthy Queens Group.

Seon-hwa's daughter Hae-in (Ji-won) survives a drowning incident as a child but one of her sons dies in the process. The loss leads to a strained relationship between them.

Grown-up and running Queens Department Store, Hae-in is later diagnosed with brain cancer and is determined to keep it a secret from an oblivious Seon-hwa.

Queen of Tears is streaming on Netflix.

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syarifahsn@asiaone.com