[Herald Economy = Reporter Moon Young-gyu] Cho Min, the daughter of Cho Kuk, leader of the Cho Kuk Innovation Party, said she got through an intense period by sticking to a daily routine while allegations over her college admissions reached a peak.
In a video titled “Baseless Witch Hunt: Why I Chose to Face It Head-On,” posted on the YouTube channel ‘Pulmujil’ on the 23rd, Cho recalled, “It was hard. I’m not someone who likes attention, but being No. 1 in real-time search results was terrifying. Reporters were staking out outside my home.”
She said, “I was a medical student, so I still had to attend classes and study. I couldn’t skip school, so I forced myself to go every day. Over time, it became routine.”
“If I had stayed home, I might have lost my mind,” she added. “Keeping up my routine helped me recover. Routines matter — they brought a kind of comfort.”
Cho Min’s mother, former Dongyang University professor Jung Kyung-shim, was sentenced to four years in prison by the Supreme Court after allegations of admission fraud involving her children surfaced in 2019.
Cho also discussed how she felt when her admission to the medical program was revoked.
“People didn’t see me as a compassionate doctor but as a symbol of an obnoxious privileged class,” she said. “I felt that if I kept my medical license, that image would harden.”
“Even if I became a doctor and practiced medicine, with public opinion so fixed I didn’t think I could live the kind of life I wanted as a physician,” she continued. “I hated that my sincerity was being distorted, so letting go of that dream felt easier.”
Asked about past suggestions that she move abroad, Cho said, “If you stop repeating mistakes and genuinely reflect, that should be enough. You shouldn’t be ashamed of the things you did right. It made me ask, ‘Why should I run away?’” She added, “Even if people judged me more harshly than I deserved, I might not have understood the harm at the time. If I recognize now that something was wrong, I can correct it.”
“I asked myself whether my actions were so egregious that I had to flee, or whether they were mistakes I could make amends for and not repeat,” she said. “When I thought that through, I felt I could repair the damage and move forward by learning and changing.”
Since then, Cho has worked as an influencer and recently launched and now runs a beauty company. In 2024, she married a non-celebrity man her age in a ceremony at Myeongdong Cathedral.
“I hadn’t planned on getting married, but when I met the right person, he proposed after four months. We booked the venue after six months, I introduced him to my parents after eight months, and we were married,” she said.
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