October 10, 2025
SEOUL – Political disputes persisted through the Chuseok holiday over President Lee Jae Myung and his wife Kim Hea Kyung’s recent appearance at JTBC’s cooking reality show “Please Take Care of My Refrigerator.”
Although the latest episode, aired Monday, recorded a viewership rating of 8.9 percent — the highest of any episode in the series — Lee’s political opponents continued to accuse the liberal president of turning a blind eye to the “national disaster” stemming from the recent massive data center blaze by pushing ahead with the variety show filming.
Monday’s episode had four Korean chefs compete to impress the presidential couple by creating or reinterpreting recipes featuring Korean homegrown ingredients. Each chef presented a condensed chicken soup, samgyetang, topped with a fried chicken dumpling and scallion oil; four types of Korean snacks with pine nuts, also called jat; Korean rice cake mixed with dried radish leaves known as siragei; and fried scorched rice with siraegi toppings.
While the ruling bloc hailed Lee’s appearance on the variety show — a first for a president — as a chance to promote the outstanding features of Korean recipes and ingredients to the world, the main opposition People Power Party blasted the liberal bloc for failing to cancel the “self-admiring” TV appearance after a data center fire that led to partial paralysis of e-government services and the death of a civil servant. The main opposition party also accused the liberal bloc of attempting to silence the opponents who raised questions about Lee’s participation in the show.
Both sides have turned to legal measures against their opponents.
Screen captures from the episode of “Please Take Care of My Refrigerator” aired on Monday. Presented on the episode were dishes such as (from top left, clockwise) fried scorched rice topped with siraegi, Korean rice cake mixed with dried radish leaves, condensed chicken soup topped with a fried chicken dumpling and scallion oil, and Korean snacks with pine nuts. PHOTO: JTBC ENTERTAINMENT/THE KOREA HERALD
After the presidential office announced Oct. 2 that the episode of Lee and Kim was set to air Sunday, Rep. Joo Jin-woo, a People Power Party lawmaker, raised suspicions on Oct. 3 that the presidential couple filmed the episode while the nation was experiencing the fallout of the data center fire.
Joo also demanded that the presidential office reveal Lee’s itinerary for the two days following Sept. 26, the night the fire broke out, claiming that Lee remained silent on the matter while filming at the TV studio.
Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung, in a statement on Oct. 3, threatened to file a lawsuit against Joo for spreading misinformation. She said Lee was briefed about the situation over the data center fire on Sept. 26 and held meetings on Sept. 28, and therefore did not remain silent. Kang, however, did not reveal when the filming took place.
Joo hit back at Kang’s claim, saying that he had evidence that the presidential couple filmed the show on Sept. 28, which presidential spokesperson Kim Nam-joon conceded on Saturday while opening up about Lee’s itinerary during the data center crisis. Joo on Monday countersued Kang and Rep. Park Soo-hyun of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea for defamation.
In the meantime, the presidential office requested that the airing date for the presidential couple’s episode be postponed to Monday, given the mourning period for the civil servant who died while handling the data center fire case.
Also over the Chuseok holiday on Sunday, Rep. Jang Dong-hyeok, chair of the People Power Party, posted on Facebook that the liberal bloc’s claims regarding Lee’s schedule after the fire were “a lie.” Jang was sued by Rep. Kim Hyun-jung of the Democratic Party for defamation on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Jang said in a party meeting that the ruling bloc had “turned to (legal) threats, blackmail and incitement in order to conceal the truth,” adding that the bloc turned on him in the face of an unprecedented national digital crisis.
Jang also criticized the Lee administration for its failure to reach a tariff deal with the US. “Please take care of the US tariffs, not a refrigerator,” Jang said Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Rep. Park Jie-won, a seasoned lawmaker of the Democratic Party, said in a radio interview that it was regrettable to see that the presidential office had not responded to the claims candidly, but added that Lee’s TV appearance is not problematic given that its purpose was to promote Korean food.
