Sulli

Early life Sulli was born on March 29, 1994, in Busan, South Korea. Aspiring to be an actress, Sulli attended Jungbu Elementary School before moving to Seoul by herself in 2004, while in fourth grade, in order to attend the Seoul branch of the MTM Academy, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing, and acting. She had previously been enrolled in another acting school by her mother at a young age.

Prior to her debut as a child actress and following her signing to SM Entertainment, her stage name was changed from Choi Jin-ri; which means "the truth" in Korean, to Sulli at the suggestion of a reporter who felt her birth name was "too Christian" and that people from other religions would not like it. In one interview, she interpreted her stage name to mean "pear blossoms in the snow".

Career 2005–2008: Career beginnings In 2005, Sulli began acting professionally at the age of 11, when she was selected to play young Princess Seonhwa of Silla in the SBS drama Ballad of Seodong. She continued to take on minor roles in television dramas and movies such as Vacation (2006), Punch Lady (2007), The Flower Girl is Here (2007) and BABO (2008).

When Sulli was in fourth grade, she attended an SM Entertainment audition, during which she sang the S.E.S. song titled Chingu ("Friend"). After the audition she was officially cast as an S.M. trainee and during the same year, moved into a dormitory with Taeyeon and Tiffany of Girls' Generation. She continued to stay there up until the debut of Girls' Generation, in 2007.

2009–2017: Debut with f(x), hiatus, and continued acting career

On September 5, 2009, Sulli debuted as a member of the group f(x), with the single "La Cha Ta".

In August 2012, Sulli starred as the lead role in To the Beautiful You, based on the famous Japanese shōjo manga series Hanazakari no Kimitachie. The drama series started broadcasting on August 15, 2012, on SBS. Sulli plays Gu Jae-hee, who disguises as a boy in order to attend the same school as her crush. In order to prepare for her role, Sulli who was known for her long hair cut 60 cm of it. She later won the New Star Award at the SBS Drama Awards for her performance in the drama.

In 2013, Sulli and group mate Krystal Jung became the new faces of the makeup brand, Etude House.

In the midst of Red Light promotions, on July 24, 2014, SM Entertainment announced that Sulli decided to take a break from the South Korean entertainment industry due to being mentally and physically exhausted from the continuous malicious comments and rumors of her dating Dynamic Duo rapper Choiza, which was not confirmed at the time, and false rumors of her being pregnant.

Due to her hiatus, she did not participate in the promotion of the 2014 period adventure film The Pirates alongside Son Ye-jin and Kim Nam-gil, where she played a supporting character named Heuk-myo, a young girl who became a pirate after being saved by the female captain. Later that same year, she resumed her acting career by attending the promotion of the 2014 comedy film Fashion King, based on the webtoon series of the same name, where she played a leading role alongside Joo Won and Kim Sung-oh. In August 2015, a year into her hiatus, SM Entertainment announced that Sulli had officially withdrawn from the group.

Between 2015 and 2017, Sulli took part in modelling for various campaigns including for Estée Lauder as an endorsement model.

2018–2019: Solo career and final projects Sulli was a featured singer in Dean's single "Dayfly", which was released on November 9, 2018, and served as her first release since leaving f(x) in 2015. On the first episode, during Sulli's turn, she responded cheerfully to the mean spirited comments, a demeanor that gained her a label on the show, "the nuclear bomb of hate comments". She agreed with a commenter that said her biggest success is her social presence on SNS and that she is an attention seeker. She disagreed with a commenter who said she looked like a "druggie" because of her large dilated pupils, saying that she has done nothing illegal, but had studied drug behavior during method acting for her film Real. She said, "I wish people would look at me and think, 'Well, someone like that exists!' Accept the difference". On October 23, 2019, Mystic Story revealed they have decided to temporarily suspend production, as Sulli was in the midst of filming the second out of five planned episodes for the series when she died.

Personal life Between September 2013 and March 2017, Sulli dated Dynamic Duo rapper Choiza, during which both celebrities endured malicious comments and cyberbullying throughout their public relationship.

In October 2018, Sulli revealed that she had struggled with panic disorder and social anxiety disorder since she was young. Prior to her death, Sulli was suffering from severe depression.

Death and impact

News leaked by an employee in the emergency response center revealed that on October 14, 2019, at approximately 3:20 p.m. KST, Sulli's brother, who was also her manager, found her hanging dead on the second floor of her house in Seongnam, south of Seoul. He reportedly visited the house when he was not able to reach her, having spoken with Sulli on the phone the previous day around 6:30 p.m. KST. Police stated that they were investigating the death as a possible suicide as there were no signs of foul play or a break-in.

They found a handwritten note in her diary in which she described her feelings, but concluded that it was not a suicide note. On October 15, police filed for an autopsy to confirm the cause of death and performed it the following morning, concluding that her body did not show any signs of death due to external force, and it is likely a suicide that occurred on the night of October 13 or the morning of October 14.

The funeral was initially closed to the media as well as fans and was privately held by family members and friends. SM Entertainment opened a separate venue in Severance Hospital's funeral hall in Sinchon-dong, Seoul, on October 15 and 16 for fans wishing to pay tribute. Various celebrities and companies, such as previous bandmates Krystal, Victoria Song, Amber Liu, and Luna, fellow singer and friend IU, Dynamic Duo, and the premiere of the film Gift, canceled their activities in order to mourn Sulli. On October 17, following a four-day private funeral and mourning ceremony at a Seoul hospital, Sulli was buried at an undisclosed location.

Multiple media outlets linked Sulli's death to depression caused by cyberbullying. Prior to her death, it was revealed that Sulli had repeatedly asked her agency, SM Entertainment, to take strong measures against malicious comments and cyberbullying. A total of seven petitions were posted at the South Korean presidential office website demanding tougher punishment for cyberbullying and strengthening use of the real-name system when posting comments and creating accounts.

Political circles discussed various ways to prevent similar events. An act with the proposed title "Sulli Act" was mentioned at a general audit of the Korea Communications Commission on October 21, where Rep. of the Liberty Korea Party said he was writing a legislative proposal to enact a new law to increase the responsibility of comments by introducing an Internet real-name system. On October 25, Rep. proposed a partial amendment to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, which imposes an obligation for information and communication service providers to delete hate comments.

The amendment included marking malicious comments as illegal information, and provide anyone who saw malicious comments, not just the one being attacked, the ability to request its deletion. On the same day, Rep. Park Dae-chool also proposed an amendment to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection which would allow the disclosure of full names of people posting comments under usernames and strengthen accountability of online comments by disclosing IPs. On October 25, 2019, Kakao announced that they were temporarily disabling comments on entertainment news to prevent hate comments and removing related search terms when searching people's names for a year.

Following her death, "Love You Sulli" started trending in an attempt by fans to hide negative search results. IU's song "Peach", which was written about Sulli, re-entered music charts. Goo Hara, who was Sulli's close friend, died by suicide a month after Sulli's death.

Dear Jinri, a documentary film structured around Sulli's final interview that was shot during the production of Persona shortly before her death, premiered at the 28th Busan International Film Festival on October 7, 2023. The film was released worldwide by Netflix that November, serving as the second episode of Persona: Sulli.

Public image When I first posted pictures of me braless, there were so many different reactions. I could have been frightened and hide, but I didn't. I wanted people's prejudices to disappear. — —Sulli on the first episode of The Night of Hate Comments in 2019 Some members of the media branded her as "eccentric" and "forward-thinking", while conservative media outlets considered her to be "inappropriate" and "absurd". Sulli's persona had been parodied on Saturday Night Live Korea.

A number of media outlets attributed the backlash against Sulli to the fact that her public image was not as carefully constructed as many of her contemporaries in the idol industry were, and she directly challenged societal expectations of women in Korean culture. The Associated Press described Sulli as someone who "was known for her feminist voice and outspokenness that was rare among female entertainers in deeply conservative South Korea." Additionally, Sulli proclaimed that she was an advocate for the no bra movement, having previously been criticized for going braless on several social media posts.

Sulli was an artist, with one of her drawings (captioned "Portrait") being the inspiration for IU's song "Red Queen" from her 2015 Chat-Shire album. Sulli was also the inspiration for IU's song "Peach".

Discography

Single albums + List of single albums, showing selected detailsTitleDetails Goblin Released: June 29, 2019 Label: SM Formats: Digital download, streaming

Singles + List of singles, with selected chart positions and sales Title Year Peak chart positions Album KOR KOR Hot US World As lead artist "Goblin" 2019 — 96 14 Goblin As featured artist "Dayfly" 2018 37 — — "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that region.

Other guest appearances + List of other guest appearances Title Year Artist(s) Album "The Way an Idol Breaks Up" 2011 Kim Hee-chul featuring Sulli Super Show 3 - The 3rd Asia Tour Concert Album

Composition credits All song credits are adapted from the Korea Music Copyright Association's database unless stated otherwise.

+ List of songs, showing year released, artist name, and name of the album Title Year Artist Album Composer Lyricist "Goblin" 2019 Sulli Goblin "On the Moon" "Dorothy"

Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 2006 Young Jin-joo Part 4: Eternal 2007 Gwak Chun-sim 2008 BABO Young Ji-ho 2012 I Am Herself Documentary of SM Town Live '10 World Tour at Madison Square Garden SM Town Live in Tokyo Special Edition in 3D Documentary of SM Town Live World Tour III at Tokyo 2014 The Pirates Heuk-myo Fashion King Kwak Eun-jin 2017 Real Song Yoo-hwa 2023 Dear Jinri Herself Posthumous documentary film

Television series Year Title Role Notes 2005 Drama City:"Goblins Are Alive" Herself Ballad of Seodong Young Princess Seonhwa of Silla 2010 Oh! My Lady Runway model Cameo (Episode 1) 2012 To the Beautiful You Goo Jae-hee Korean version of Hana Kimi 2019 Hotel del Luna Jung Ji-eun Cameo (Episode 10)

Web series Year Title Role Notes 2023 Persona: Sulli Herself 2 episodes, including Dear Jinri

Television shows Year Title Role 2010–2011 Inkigayo Host 2011 Welcome to the Show Fictional version of herself TV Animal Farm Special MC 2018 Jin Ri's Market Lead role 2019 The Night of Hate Comments MC

Awards and nominations

+ Name of the award ceremony, year presented, category, nominee of the award, and the result of the nomination Award ceremony Year Category Nominee / Work Result Baeksang Arts Awards 2013 Most Popular Actress (Television) To the Beautiful You 2015 Most Popular Actress (Film) Fashion King Mnet 20's Choice Awards 2012 20's Upcoming 20's Sulli SBS Drama Awards 2012 New Star Award To the Beautiful You Netizen Popularity Award