In the first major celebrity news of 2021, hit romantic K-drama Crash Landing On You’s (2019-2020) onscreen couple Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin admitted to being an item in real life as well.
According to South Korean entertainment news site Soompi, the stars’ respective agencies confirmed that Son and Hyun Bin, whose real name is Kim Tae-pyung, “met through their projects, and after the end of their drama, their positive feelings towards one another developed into a romantic relationship”.
Son posted on her Instagram after the news broke. She wrote: “Appearing in front of all of you with news about my personal life instead of work for the first time, I wonder why I feel so embarrassed.”
She added: “I’m thankful to have met a good person and I’ll work hard (on the relationship).”
The A-list couple, both 38, previously starred in the film The Negotiation (2018) before reuniting for last year’s wildly popular drama Crash Landing On You – about a South Korean heiress who falls in love with a North Korean soldier.
The news broke after South Korean tabloid Dispatch – known for exposing celebrity relationships on the first day of the new year – published a report with photos of Son getting into Hyun Bin’s car.
The report added that though the stars have been rumoured to be dating since first working together on crime thriller The Negotiation, they only began to do so in earnest after wrapping Crash Landing On You – sometime in March 2020.
They were spotted going to a supermarket in the United States together in early 2019 but their agencies clarified then that they were merely friends and not dating.
Both Son and Hyun Bin – who have been popular leading stars in South Korea for over a decade – have kept their love life largely low profile throughout their careers despite their fair share of dating rumours.
While Son’s romantic history is a bit of a mystery, Hyun Bin dated fellow A-lister Song Hye-kyo (Descendants Of The Sun, 2016) for around two years after working on the series Worlds Within (2008) but the two broke up in 2011.
This article first appeared in The Straits Times.