Actress Lee Young-ae Gets Married Secretly

Top actress Lee Young-ae has surprised even the show bisuness world with the news about her secret wedding. Even people close to her learned about her wedding, which she thoroughly kept under covers, from the news.

Actor Oh Jae-hyeong, who is close with Lee, said in a telephone interview with Yonhap News on August 25 that he was very surprised and that he hadn't heard from Lee since last year.

Fashion columnist Shim Woo-chan, who worked with Lee on her photo album, was also surprised to hear the news.

The actress was able to keep her wedding under wraps by holding the ceremony in the U.S. and staying away from the public eye since her last movie "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". Moreover, she has not been involved in any romance rumors so far.

Lee has kept out of touch with her close friends since last year, apparently because she wanted to prepare for her wedding, and blocked any rumors about her from being circulated. The last public appearance that she made was in May, when she attended the late actress Yeo Woon-kye's funeral.

Since her debut, Lee has never once been involved in romance rumors. Though rumors about her dating an entrepreneur spread widely, the two had never been captured by paparazzi's cameras or appeared in public together.

Lee aroused even more curiosity by breaking the news about her wedding and just briefly introducing her husband, who is a Korean American. Some presume Lee's husband to be the entrepreneur who she had dated before, because he is also a Korean American and a graduate of the University of Illinois.

The fact that the actress held the wedding abroad and broke the news via her attorney has led some to conclude that the Korean show business is following Hollywood trends. Hollywood celebrities thoroughly protect their privacy and announce their public stances through their attorneys to keep a distance from the public. They also take prompt action when there is a possibility of their defamation.

A person from the show business sector said that in the past celebrities were considered popular when their weddings were crowded, but the latest trend is to hold wedding ceremonies secretly and even conceal the spouses if the latter are not public figures. He also added that Lee went a step further by tying the knot overseas to protect her privacy.

An actress who asked that her name not be disclosed said that though weddings are a part of a person's private life, everybody wants to receive congratulations on their wedding, and that the fact that Lee held her wedding overseas behind closed doors showed that she had been seriously stressed out by her celebrity status.