Lee Hyori (Hangul: 이효리; Hanja: 李孝利; born May 10, 1979), is a South Korean singer, actress, record producer, activist, and television presenter. Dubbed as the "Queen of K-pop" and "Nation's Fairy" during her Family Outing days, she debuted as a member of the successful K-pop girl group Fin.K.L, but has since become a solo artist. In 2003, she released her debut solo album Stylish which won several "Artist of the Year" awards. In 2006, Lee was the highest-paid female singer in her native country when she signed a contract with Mnet Media.

Biographie

1998-2002: Beginning in Fin.K.L

Lee Hyori began her career as part of South Korean pop girl group Fin.K.L. As the eldest member, she was the leader of the group. Lee was discovered while taking sticker pictures with her friends and was actually the last to join Fin.K.L, just before their debut in January 1998. Fin.K.L debuted officially on May 22, 1998 with their first single "Blue Rain", which was received quite well. The second release from their debut album, "To My Boyfriend", became the first of their multiple number one hits. Fin.K.L became one of the most popular and successful South Korean pop groups of all-time, rivaling fellow popular girl group S.E.S.


2003–2005: Solo debut
A year after Fin.K.L's fourth studio album Forever, her solo debut album was released on August 2003, entitled Stylish. The lead single "10 Minutes" became one of her signature hits and the singer nearly swept the Daesangs, the most prestigious South Korean music award, winning more than seven of them, including three of the four most prestigious Daesangs. Stylish sold 144,182 copies in South Korea alone, according to the Music Industry Association of Korea in 2003. Her popularity in her various activities eventually was dubbed as the "Hyori Syndrome" in South Korea, and the Korean Media nicknamed 2003 "The Year of Hyori" as she was rarely out of the news all year.

In January 2005, Lee made her acting debut in the SBS TV series Three Leaf Clover, starring opposite Ryu Jin, Kim Jung-hwa, Kim Kang-woo, and Lee Hoon. However, the 16-episode drama received low ratings (less than 10%) and Lee was criticized for her acting, with viewers saying she was miscast as a downtrodden but cheerful steel mill worker.

On August 8, 2005, she co-hosted the annual Korean Music Festival for the second year running.


2006–2007: Move to Mnet and Dark Angel
In February 2006, Lee released her follow up album, Dark Angel. The first single, "Get Ya!", was controversial as the songwriters of Britney Spears' single "Do Somethin'" accused the "Get Ya!" songwriters of plagiarism.

It was reported that Lee had signed a three-year contract with Mnet Entertainment (currently Mnet Media) for ₩2.2 billion, becoming the highest-paid female singer in South Korea (approx. US$2,2 million per year).

Despite the failure of her previous drama Three Leaf Clover, in 2007 Lee starred opposite Lee Dong-gun in the mini-drama If in Love... Like Them. She played a pop star who is diagnosed with a terminal illness that leaves her only months to live. Although originally announced as being only one episode long, it aired for four episodes on Mnet. An edited two-episode version of the drama also ran on SBS. During filming, part of a roof Lee was standing on collapsed. Only her foot fell through, but reportedly the fall might have been fatal if co-star Lee Dong-gun had not rescued her.

In February 2007, Lee announced her new digital single which would essentially be the soundtrack to If in Love... Like Them. She performed all three main tracks from the single on Inkigayo on February 25, 2007. The lead song was "Toc Toc Toc" (Hangul: 톡톡톡; RR: Toktoktok), which was a sexy R&B number like her previous efforts. However, the single also gave Lee an opportunity to sing ballads and to slowly move away from her "sexy superstar" image. The single, although initially given a digital-only release, was given a limited retail release of only 30,000 copies. It was released on March 6, 2007, and in addition to the three tracks found in the digital single, it included a reworked version of "Toc Toc Toc." It was the best-selling album for that month, selling 27,845 copies.

Although her single was commercially successful, her drama was heavily penalized for violating advertising guidelines, as If in Love... Like Them had several instances of overt product placement, in addition to using Lee's songs in the soundtrack. The Korean Broadcasting Committee ruled that the drama can never be aired in South Korea again, and that the network must apologize to its viewers.

Lee also did promotions in Japan when Japanese network Fuji TV aired If in Love... Like Them, where the singer/actress was given the same VIP treatment offered to other international stars. The drama was broadcast on CS Fuji, a smaller satellite channel that Fuji TV owned.


2008–2009: TV hosting and It's Hyorish
During breaks in her solo music career, Lee also hosted various television programs, including Time Machine and Happy Together, which she co-hosted with Yoo Jae-suk in 2006. On April 8, 2008, she joined KBS's Sang Sang Plus as a co-host alongside Country Kkokko members Shin Jung-hwan and Tak Jae-hoon. She was one of the original co-hosts of Change, a show on SBS's Good Sunday line-up, before leaving in early July. She is also a former cast member of season one of the variety show Family Outing. Mnet also ran a 12-episode show called Off the Record: Lee Hyori, which documented Lee's life on-set for three months; the show's purpose was to lessen the gap between the singer and her fans/anti-fans by letting them see that she is just another human being like everyone.

On December 20, 2008, Lee held her first solo concert Lee Hyori the Invincible at the Jamsil Arena. Upon release, tickets to the concert sold out in five minutes.

Her third studio album, It's Hyorish, was released on July 14, 2008. "U-Go-Girl", the first single from the album, hit #1 on online and offline charts, including various television music shows.

In November 2009, her contract with Mnet Media was set to expire. Lee planned to sign a contract with Gil Entertainment (currently B2M Entertainment) and work with Gil Jong-hwa who had been Fin.K.L's co-manager and had worked with the group since its debut. However, her 2010 album was released under the label of Mnet Media.


2010–present: H-Logic and Monochrome
Almost two years after her previous album, Lee returned with H-Logic on April 12, 2010. The album has 14 tracks, including collaborations with Daesung from Big Bang, Jeon Ji-yoon from 4Minute, Bekah from After School, Gary from Leessang, and Sangchu from Mighty Mouth. The singer worked also with E-Tribe, the team behind "U-Go-Girl", the lead single from her previous album.

A music video was released for "Swing" (Hangul: 그네; RR: Geune), featuring Gary from Leessang, on March 31, 2010. The lead single "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and its music video were released soon after. The self-penned song, which features Ceejay (from Freshboyz), was released the same day as her album. She won two Mutizen Song awards on The Music Trend for her lead single within two weeks.

Soon after the release of the album H-Logic, seven of its songs, composed by Bahnus, were accused of plagiarism (among the allegedly plagiarized songs was "Bring It Back," performed by Canadian girl group Cookie Couture). On June 21, 2010, Lee admitted that the plagiarism accusations against her album were true, saying she had been "deceived"; she temporarily stopped all her activities as a singer and suspended her TV appearances.

While on hiatus, Lee began to grow as a cultural influence. She wrote online columns for vernacular newspapers such as The Hankyoreh that mixed her thoughts on life and career with social commentary, and was well reviewed for her simple prose, humor and intelligence. She also became an increasing presence in the civic community, emerging as one of the country's most high-profile animals rights activists. In 2011, Lee released two charity songs for donation to animal shelters, "Please Stay Behind" (Hangul: 남아 주세요; RR: Nama Juseyo) and "Remember" (Hangul: 기억해; RR: Gieokhae).

Beginning March 4, 2012, she and singer-songwriter/pianist Jung Jae-hyung hosted the music show Jung Jae-hyung & Lee Hyo-ri's You and I on SBS. The show aired its final episode on October 14, 2012, ending its ten-month run due to low ratings.

After her comeback was pushed back several times throughout 2012, it was announced that Lee would return to the stage with her fifth full-length album in May 2013. Five video teasers were released on YouTube on April 23, 2013. On May 6, 2013, she released her pre-release track for the album, titled "Miss Korea" (Hangul: 미스코리아; RR: Miseukoria). Lee herself wrote and composed the sophisticated retro-jazz song (it was arranged by her then-boyfriend, guitarist Lee Sang-soon), and the full-version music video released on the same day was a black-and-white video depicting Lee as a circa 1950s-type glamorous Miss Korea pageant crown holder. She personally selected 30 non-celebrity women "with love and respect for themselves" who she saw as the genuine Miss Korea's to perform the song with her on stage at the 2013 SBS Gayo Daejeon televised concert.

Her fifth studio album, Monochrome, was released on May 21, 2013. Lee wrote the lyrics for eight of the 16 tracks on the album, and reportedly used a full band instead of using electronically generated sounds for the songs. Upon its release, eight tracks were ranked in the top 10 on Bugs, Olleh and Naver Music, while its lead track, "Bad Girls" topped the charts on MelOn, Naver, Olleh and Bugs. She performed "Bad Girls" as part of a highly praised collaboration stage at the 2013 SBS Gayo Daejeon televised concert along with CL from girl group 2NE1, who had also release a bad girl themed song that year called The Baddest Female.

On April 2, 2014, SBS announced she and actress Moon So-ri would host a talk show Magic Eye. The show started filming in April.