The court has ordered a media outlet to remove and stop distributing reporting that alleged an affair and a pregnancy involving singer MC Mong (real name Shin Dong-hyun) and CEO Cha Ga-won. The injunction followed the submission of an affidavit in which MC Mong acknowledged fabricating the message the coverage relied upon.
On the 26th, the Seoul Western District Court’s 21st Civil Division (Presiding Judge Shin Myung-hee) partially granted Cha’s emergency injunction seeking to block publication of the article and an accompanying YouTube video, legal sources said.
The court ruled that outlet A must delete specified passages from its Dec. 24, 2025 article headlined “[Exclusive] ‘I tried so hard to get pregnant’…MC Mong, Cha Ga-won, a 12 billion KRW (9 million USD) affair” and from the related YouTube video. The material ordered removed includes language asserting or implying Cha and MC Mong were having an affair or were lovers, the KakaoTalk chat screenshots the outlet published as exchanges between the two, and statements that Cha received ovulation injections to attempt pregnancy. The court also barred republishing those passages on online news sites or social media. Outlet A was ordered to bear 90% of the litigation costs.
The court found the evidence submitted by outlet A lacked credibility. It highlighted an affidavit in which MC Mong admitted fabricating the chat messages central to the affair allegation. For other chat records, the court noted MC Mong submitted a sworn statement denying that his earlier statements reflected reality. The court also judged that submitted audio recordings and third-party confirmations had low evidentiary value.
Regarding the pregnancy claim, the court said the only supporting evidence was the disputed chat screenshots, which MC Mong admitted he had fabricated, and that there was no indication Cha had actually received ovulation injections. Cha’s camp reportedly submitted five years of obstetric records to the court to contest that finding.
The court added that even if outlet A had reasonable grounds to believe the reported facts were true, that might be relevant to criminal defamation or civil damages liability, but it did not negate the right to seek deletion of the material through an injunction to remove the obstacle.
However, the court denied Cha’s request to delete the entire article. It found the article’s separate assertion—that Cha sought repayment of a 12 billion KRW (9 million USD) loan from MC Mong—was undisputed between the parties and therefore did not constitute an infringement of personality rights. The court also rejected Cha’s request to remove the YouTube video and to impose fines for noncompliance, noting the video had already been set to private and that there was insufficient evidence to show the infringement would continue or that the injunction would likely be violated.
Min-kyung Lee, TenAsia reporter 2min_ror@tenasia.co.kr
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