Lee Ji-ah (born Kim Sang-eun on February 2, 1978) is a South Korean actress. After her first leading role in The Legend (2007), she has starred in television series such as Beethoven Virus (2008), Style (2009), Athena: Goddess of War (2010), and Me Too, Flower! (2011).

Lee had been secretly married for 9 years to Korean pop/rock icon Seo Taiji, from 1997 to 2006. Their marriage, which had been a closely guarded secret, became public in 2011 when Lee filed for a multi-million-dollar settlement, and the news became one of the biggest scandals to date in the local entertainment scene.

Biographie

In March 2011, a photo taken by a tourist of Lee and Athena costar Jung Woo-sung on a date in Paris surfaced on the internet, and the two confirmed that they were romantically involved.

But on April 21, 2011, Sports Seoul broke the story (later confirmed by numerous media outlets) that she and Korean pop/rock icon Seo Taiji had been secretly married since 1997, before splitting in 2006. News leaked after two hearings had been held at the Seoul Family Court (court papers used Seo and Lee's birth names - Jeong Hyeon-cheol and Kim Sang-eun, respectively) since Lee filed a ₩5.5 billion lawsuit against Seo for alimony and division of assets. This shocked the Korean entertainment scene, as even their closest aides and friends confessed that they were unaware of the relationship. Both celebrities were believed to have been single. Particularly, Lee had recently admitted to dating Jung (they broke up shortly after).

According to the statement she released through her agency, Lee left for the United States to study in 1993 and met Seo through an acquaintance at a concert in Los Angeles the same year. They kept in touch and developed a long-distance relationship through letters and phone calls while Lee stayed in the U.S. and Seo went back to Korea to continue his entertainment activities with his band Seo Taiji and Boys. In 1996, Seo disbanded Seo Taiji and Boys and announced his retirement from show business, after which he went to the U.S. where he and Lee quietly married on October 12, 1997. The couple lived in the States, moving to Atlanta and then Arizona.

They separated when Seo returned to Korea in June 2000 for his comeback to the K-pop scene as a solo artist. Lee, who stayed behind in the U.S., began divorce proceedings in 2006 at the Santa Monica Family Court on the grounds of irreconcilable differences due to incompatible lifestyles and personalities.

Lee attended a Seo Taiji Wormhole Concert in March 2009 ostensibly as a fan and this was the only known official link between Seo and Lee. There was later speculation that her stage name Lee Ji-ah is the name "Taiji" spelled backwards without the "T", and the dress she designed and wore at the 2007 MBC Drama Awards which had "Lee Ji-a Toes" in black cursive English script sewn into the white fabric, was Seo's name spelled backwards. Also, Seo's former manager Song Gyun-hyung is the brother of Bae Yong-joon's manager Song Il-hyun, a connection which may explain how Lee was cast in the 2004 LG commercial and the 2007 TV series The Legend opposite Bae, despite being a newcomer.

The 2011 lawsuit resulted from their contrasting views on the time of divorce - Lee claimed she filed the divorce suit in 2006 and the court decision became effective in 2009, thus the three years required under Korean law for seeking alimony hadn't expired. But Seo's assertion was that the divorce officially took effect on August 9, 2006 and the statute of limitations had passed. Lee lodged the suit in January and withdrew it on April 30, citing psychological suffering after her private life was made public. Seo's lawyers opposed the motion, and Lee resumed her case, with her lawyer arguing that the California court ruling was invalid and that the two were still legally married. Through mediation, the ex-couple reached an out-of-court settlement in July 2011, which included a non-disclosure agreement.