Back in early 2024, Edward Park was having dinner when he received a text from a friend. It read: “Hey, have you ever thought about being a K-pop idol?”
“Here we go again,” he thought, letting out an audible groan.
That is because the budding actor had already chased his K-pop dream: he spent three months in Korea when he was 17, honing his singing and dancing skills around the clock at a Seoul training centre that acted as a funnel for K-pop agencies. There, Park would sing “until my voice would just collapse in on itself” and dance “until I would just collapse on the floor”, he says.
But after promises to join two big companies never materialised – as well as concerns over his mental and physical health – Park decided to walk away from the industry.