K-pop is known for catchy music, high-energy
dancing and colorful fashions. But the fun and
excitement of the genre—which has exploded in
the U.S. in recent years thanks to groups like the
electrifying boy band BTS—can belie a darkness
that has driven some performers to despair.
“It was fun at first,” says Amber Liu, who grew up
in Los Angeles, where she was discovered by one of
South Korea’s largest entertainment companies,
SM Entertainment, at age 15, and sent overseas
where she was groomed for the South Korean girl
group f(x). “But later the loneliness and all that
stuff settles in.” There was grueling training and
pressure to please others. “Of course I’m going
to post happy things on social media,” she says.
“Because if I post that I’m depressed, nobody’s
going to want to see that.” (SM Entertainment has
not responded to People’s requests for comment.)
When Liu learned that her former bandmate,
Korean superstar Sulli, died by suicide at the
age of 25 on Oct. 14, 2019, her first feeling was
disbelief—then anger. “It was just so hard,” Liu,
now 27, tells People. “I felt really angry. I was angry
at myself, too, because Sulli and I talked a few
weeks before. It’s like, ‘Man, if I just sent another
text, what could have happened?’ ”
Known for speaking out about her feminist ide-
als, Sulli often received backlash from her contem-
poraries in conservative South Korea, particularly
for going out in public without a bra. Throughout
the six years they spent together in f(x) between
2009 and 2015, Liu says Sulli
“wasn’t that type of person to
actually let things get to her.”
But one of the last Instagram
Live videos she’d share before
her death, in which she told her
followers, “I’m not a bad person,”‘MONEY GIVES
COMFORT,
BUT IT DOES
NOT GIVE
HAPPINESS’
—AMBER LIUThough Sulli (inset and with Liu, left) exited f(x) in
2015 to pursue an acting career, she and Liu (above)
remained friends. Despite her battles with anxiety and
depression, Sulli was “like a ball of joy,” Liu told CBS
This Morning in January. “She was always so cute, so
rebellious. She was quirky. We had this joke that she’s
my little brother, and I’m her older brother. I miss
her a lot.” After learning of Sulli’s death on Oct. 14,
2019, Liu wrote on Twitter that she would be “putting
on hold” her upcoming activities at the time. “Sorry
everyone,” she wrote. “Thank you for your thoughts.”AMBER REMEMBERS HER FRIEND SULLIPhotograph by EMILY SOTOP13KPO4A.indd 66 FINAL 3/17/20 2:28 AM