Lee Hye-young: Buried in Debt After Her First Marriage, Then Diagnosed With Lung Cancer After Remarrying

A new video titled 'Lee Hye-young, in Her Sixth Year of Fighting Cancer and Ahead of Her Fifth Year of Follow-up Tests' was released on the YouTube channel 'Hye-young Cannot Be Stopped.' In the video, actor Lee Hye-young looked back on what she described as the most intense and hard-fought period of her life.

Speaking about her younger years, Lee said she had worked in a way that 'really wore down' her body. Her routine at the time was relentless: when drama filming ended late at night, she would immediately head to a home-shopping studio, and after that broadcast finished, she would return to a filming set again before dawn. Looking back, she said, 'What I would want to say to myself back then is to eat properly. I was always living on things that were bad for my body. I could feel my physical condition getting worse and worse.'

Lee said that after her divorce in 2005, her thoughts were consumed by the question of how she would survive financially. During the process of her marriage to and divorce from Lee Sang-min, debts had been placed under her name, leaving her in a situation where she had to focus frantically on paying them off. She described that period simply: 'Earn and repay, earn and repay, earn and repay. It was a repetition of that.'

She recalled spending seven to eight years doing every kind of work she could take on. 'For those seven or eight years, I filmed dramas, did home-shopping broadcasts and published a book,' Lee said. 'I think I did everything that could make money. I kept earning and paying things back. Only after quite a long time did all the problems begin to get sorted out.'

Lee also revealed that after remarrying her current husband, she received a lung cancer diagnosis from a hospital around the time of their 10th wedding anniversary. She had experienced pneumothorax since childhood and had undergone regular checkups because of it. A lesion that had been under follow-up observation grew larger, and she was ultimately diagnosed with cancer.

After surgery, Lee is now preparing for what she described as her final follow-up examination. 'The results of my last test will come out this August,' she said. 'Since about a year ago, I have felt my body gradually getting better. Through YouTube, I wanted to share the information and experience I have gained. From now on, I want to return to the Lee Hye-young I was before I became ill.' Her remarks conveyed a sense of hope as she looked ahead.