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       The Great Read

       A K-Pop Star’s Lonely Downward Spiral

       Goo Hara’s life was a struggle from the start. She ended it at 28, isolated and harassed online.

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       Fans at a memorial room for Goo Hara in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, in November 2022, three years after her death. Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times

       By Motoko Rich and John Yoon

       Reporting from Seoul

       Feb. 28, 2024, 10:00 a.m. ET

       The K-pop star looked utterly drained. Her face scrubbed of makeup, Goo Hara, one of South Korea’s most popular musical artists, gazed into the camera during an Instagram livestream from a hotel room in Japan. In a fading voice, she read questions from fans watching from around the world.

       “You going to work, fighting?” one asked.

       In halting English, she gave a plaintive answer: “My life is always so fighting.”

       By the time she climbed into bed at the end of the livestream in November 2019, she had reached a low point after a lifetime of struggle. As a child, she was abandoned by her parents. Her father at one point attempted suicide. After grueling training, she debuted in a K-pop group at 17, early even by the standards of the Korean hit-making machine.

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       With the group, Kara, she found international fame, and Ms. Goo became a regular on Korean television, eventually anchoring her own reality series. But with celebrity came ravenous attacks on social media from a Korean public that is as quick to criticize stars as it is to fawn over them. Following a sordid legal fight with an ex-boyfriend, the harassment only intensified, as commenters criticized her looks, her personality and her sex life.

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       Ms. Goo in 2018, the year before she died by suicide. Credit...Choi Soo-Young/Imazins, via Getty Images

       On Nov. 23, 2019, less than a week after her Instagram appearance, she posted a photo of herself tucked in bed, with the caption “Good night.”

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       Motoko Rich is a reporter in Tokyo, leading coverage of Japan for The Times. More about Motoko Rich

       John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news. More about John Yoon

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