As Cho Jin Woong announced his retirement after revelations that he had been involved in juvenile crime in his youth, a former high-school underclassman has stepped forward with a striking claim: he remembers Cho as “closer to a bullying victim than an aggressor.”
On December 9th, a post titled “I remember Cho Jin Woong’s high school days” spread quickly across social media. The writer A recalled meeting Cho—then known as Cho Won Joon—in 1995 through the school theater club. “He was big, gentle, and soft-spoken,” A wrote, adding that the school atmosphere back then was “honestly awful.” According to A, upperclassmen would barge into rehearsals “just to beat him up for no reason,” even in front of everyone else. “They were basically gangsters.”
A stressed Cho was never part of the bully circle. “He absolutely wasn’t the bully. He was the one they tormented,” he wrote. Because Cho was a year older than his classmates, A said he was targeted even more. “He got hit every day and never fought back. In today’s terms, he was treated like a doormat who had to obey orders.”
Despite that, A said Cho never took out his frustration on underclassmen. “Even after getting dragged out and hit, he’d come back and crack jokes to lighten the mood. He never cursed at us or snapped at us.” He also noted that if Cho had hurt others, someone from that time would have spoken up by now.
Regarding the past incident, A suggested Cho may have gone along under threat. “It was the kind of situation where not doing it meant getting beaten. He wasn’t acting on his own.” Still, he emphasized he wasn’t trying to excuse the crime: “Wrong is wrong.”
A closed by saying Cho was someone who endured quietly in an era filled with violence. “If you look only at school life, he was actually a victim.”
However, many netizens responded coldly, writing comments such as: “Someone who was good to you could still be harmful to others,” “We should center the victims’ experiences,” and “Even a killer can be a great neighbor until the day they commit murder.”
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