These days, Honey Lee is making headlines for her upcoming drama series- Knight Flower. It is scheduled to release on 12 January 2024. We will see her maintaining a double life. Keeping that aside, Honey Lee made some revelations about how she received criticism earlier for her non-Korean looks. To be more precise, that was prominent while she used to participate in the beauty pageants.
Starting from the basics, Honey Lee is an incredible actress from Seoul. Have you not watched the latest work- “Killing Romance”? She played the role of Hwang Yeo-rae. Some of her other acting credits are- Phantom, Black Money, Come Back Mister, One The Woman, and Shine or Go Crazy.
As previously mentioned about her beauty pageant days, yes, Honey Lee is a model. She holds the title of- Miss Korea 2006. Also she became the third runner-up of Miss Universe 2007. Despite being a fan, not everyone knows that Honey Lee was originally known as Lee Hanee.
Well, Honey Lee is a talented person. She is also a classical musician. Little did you know Honey Lee graduated from Seoul National University and earned a degree in traditional Korean music.
Moving on with Honey Lee’s looks, she is undoubtedly beautiful. But, while she participated in the Miss Universe and Miss Korea competitions, she received nonsensical hate from some. She was reportedly much different if compared to the others. Here is what Honey Lee shared after so many years.
Honey Lee and The Nonsensical Criticism For Her Non-Korean Appearance
Well Honey Lee maintains a very healthy lifestyle. In other words, people don’t just know her for her acting skills or as a model, but also for her fitness freak nature. During a confessional interview, Honey Lee shared that things were not so easy for her.
To live with a sun-kissed, super-healthy, “lean, mean, toned-machine” aesthetic appearance, things were initially a bit problematic, especially when she participated in the beauty pageants.
Concerning the other competitors of Miss Korea 2006, Honey Lee didn’t find them working out. On this note, she said, “A lot of them had that pale, almost translucent skin tones.” What differentiated the Korean and non-Korean appearance? Well, the “Korean standard” at that time was to have a pale white face and a skinny paper figure.
But Honey Lee had a darker skin tone with a muscular figure. The beauty pageants expected a different visual, and she didn’t fit into that.
The Knight Flower actress revealed some of the incidents that highlighted the hatred she received back then. Once, Honey Lee went on the stage and said hello to everyone present. Guess what? People did not like her tanned skin and muscular thighs. Even though that’s considered cool now, it was different earlier. Honey Lee said, “They were like, “Oh, what’s wrong with her thighs?”
Honey Lee has always been very confident about herself. She is aware of what she can do and what she can’t. We call that a “can-do attitude.” According to the people at the beauty pageants, it was “over the top.” Because of that, she was asked to not walk with so much conviction but more “elegantly.”
Well, Honey Lee was very young, probably in her 20s, back then. After receiving so much criticism for her looks, she felt helpless and became conscious about her future. Even though she moved to the acting industry, the backlash didn’t leave her.
To the newbies, dimples are not celebrated well in Korea. In other words, those are considered as “flaws.” Honey Lee does have dimples. Things became so ugly that people even ad advised her to get them “corrected” by plastic surgery. On this note, the actress said, “They said I’m too large of a person to be on camera. And they would always point out my dimples.”
Following this confessional interview, fans started showering Honey Lee with endless love and support. Some even took it to social media and penned some posts. One said, “Korean standards have long equated femininity and beauty with the pale, soft, vulnerable, and almost sickly. It’s no wonder Lee Honey came off as dangerously different back then.”
Best wishes to Honey Lee! Make sure to follow Honey Lee on her Instagram account. She is undoubtedly ”beautiful.”
