Song-Song Couple Reportedly Going to Split Assets That Are Worth SGD$115 Million

If you’re the type who prefers your news to contain biased opinions by having personal attachments to the news subject, congratulations!

You can burn me at the stake for I have zero interest in the private lives of celebrities!

So here’s the gist of what happened, for those who keep seeing this Song-Song thing and keep thinking what’s so songsong buaysong songboh about it:

• Descendants of the Sun (DoTS) is a 2016 drama starring both Song Joong-ki and Song Hye-kyo, among other Korean stars. It’s popular enough to have an economic effect on Korea.
• Song-Song had feelings for each other before DoTS
• Rumours going around as per usual celebrity business, but no official Song-Song confirmation
• July 2017, they announced their marriage to be in October 2017. At this stage, this is the kind of things that make girls (and guys, maybe?) fans go AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! because it’s like a fairy tale romance.
• Celebrities like the quiet so much, they decided to reject sponsors for their wedding.
• Feb 2019, Song Hye-kyo spotted not wearing her ring. RUMOURS!
• 2 years is a long time, but in marriage it’s short, I guess. April 2019, they announced their divorce.
• Did I mention that DoTS is popular enough to have an economic impact on Korea? Their divorce made their theme park cancel an annual festival.

Total assets in marriage worth S$115m

Their divorce proceedings were announced on 27 Jun, and the favourite part of people watching the show with popcorn like me is watching the fire burn as they fight over how they split their assets.

How much are we talking about?

A total of S$115m or 100 billion won, according to website Soompi.

Actually, is it that fun to watch rich people essentially counting their money? I’m getting a little depressed when comparing the figures. How many Goody Feeds do you think we need to catch up to S$115m?

The money includes endorsements, advertisement revenue and real estate, though before the marriage they were already pretty rich.

South Korean daily Maeil Business Newspaper reported that Song Joong-ki earned about 40 billion won (S$46.4 million) from advertisements, of those, some money was poured into:

• Villa in Seorae Village, Seocho District, for 2.5 billion won ($2.9 million)
• 180-pyeong (approximately 6405 square feet) mansion in Itaewon, Yongsan District for 10 billion won ($11.6 million)
• 100-pyeong (approximately 3558 square feet) house in Itaewon

Meanwhile, Song Hye-kyo has:

• 3 properties in Samseong neighbourhood in Seoul, worth 20.6 won (S$23.9 million)
• Condo in New York from indie film Fetish (2008), worth S$2.3 million at time of purchase

You can count all you want, but just know that all we have are estimates and it’s likely to be inaccurate anyway.

Divorce Mediation, not Divorce Agreement, means no drama

Channel A, the Korean TV network, reported that Song-Song applied for divorce mediation, and not divorce agreement.

What this means is that this wouldn’t be a courtroom drama, which would what is otherwise called a Litigated Divorce (though different countries are different, so don’t take my non-legally trained eyes on this). This isn’t a place I can throw my courtroom gifs and tell you law suits and shouting happening in court.

It’s quite a civil process where they just sit down and say nah, you take this, I take that, and the other goes, eh, ok loh. But both sides will also have a lawyer behind them so everything is fair.

Song Hye-kyo’s agency’s official statement for the divorce is “a difference in personality”. And Maeil Business Newspaper also predicted that everything will go smoothly without drama, so there’s nothing much to do down here except put down my popcorn.

As for the economic students out there, perhaps I have inspired you to write your thesis or PhD “Celebrities’ Economic Impact”, for it is for sure the most origina-

Oh, ok. But really, I wonder how much money South Korea potentially loses because of this divorce?