“Where Is My Home” Producers Face Intense Criticism After Casting An “Adulterous Couple” To Be Featured Guests

On April 12, 2020, the popular TV program Where Is My Home shared a teaser featuring a young couple, soon to be wed, looking for their first home sweet home together.

Following the teaser, however, one Korean woman “A” wrote a plead to stop Where Is My Home from airing the upcoming episode — and when the online exposé went viral, the program faced intense criticism for “casting a couple that met in an adulterous affair“. In her plead, A revealed that she and her ex-husband “B” got married in 2017 — but after a year of an unhappy marriage, she decided on a divorce.

And in the process, when A found out the whole time B had been seeing a “girlfriend C”, to whom he proposed to marry after his divorce with A finalized, she took C to court to make her pay for destroying her family. The court, upon hearing a series of recorded phone conversations that clearly laid out that C knew about A and B — as well as A’s pregnancy with B’s child, ruled C to be guilty of adultery and sentenced her to some compensation for A’s trauma.

Hence, as proven by the evidence provided above, Defendant C knowingly involved herself in an adulterous relationship with Defendant B who is married and caused Defendant B’s marriage to fail. Defendant C is responsible in compensating Plaintiff A for the mental suffering caused by the divorce.

— Court

A believed the battle to be over until Where Is My Home portrayed B and C as “a happy soon-to-be-wed couple” on national television. A commented, “I didn’t want my young son to think of his father as a bad man, so I tried my best to share only the best things I had to say about my ex-husband.” She worried that should her son see the episode, he will be extremely hurt.

What if my son sees the episode? Seeing his father on the television with another woman is going to break his heart. I really don’t want the episode to air at all. That’s why I decided to share my story online.

— A

With that said, Korean netizens bombarded the Where Is My Home website and demanded that the producers re-think their decision to air the next episode. Once the concerned voice grew, Where Is My Home team quietly deleted the said teaser — frustrating the netizens even more.

By April 17, 2020, Where Is My Home released an official statement, explaining that the program had no idea about the detailed background of how B and C came to be a couple.

We’re also shocked to find out about B and C. The couple signed up to be featured guests on the show like everyone else does. The team interviewed the couple before casting — but those interviews often focus around the guests’ specific housing needs, to see if it would be feasible. It is impossible for the program to ‘background check‘ the private lives of the featured guests.

— Where Is My Home Producing Team

The show concluded, “All scenes showing the couple will be edited out, in consideration of the viewers who may find them offensive.” That is to say, the episode is likely to air as scheduled. Korean netizens respected the decision and understood the extra work that has been assigned to the editing team — and blamed the “shameless adulterous couple” for “being a nuisance“.

• “The producing team is a victim in this too, so I don’t think the program has to give the couple any financial support in moving into the house and stuff… They should be glad the program isn’t suing them.”
• “How would they edit the guests out though… The episode wouldn’t make any sense without having the guests chime in.”
• “Just make the couple pay back the move-in financial support. I feel so bad for the production team… The episode is set to air in a couple of days literally…”
• “A brought receipts and everything… So there was no way that the the show could have pushed with airing the episode without editing. I really hope the production team takes the couple to court for all the ruckus they caused.”
• “I hope the show doesn’t give the couple the move-in financial support… In fact, I hope the production team gets compensated for their loss of time too!”
• “Can’t believe how tough this must be for the production team right now…”
• “Every episode is super dressed up in CG though… So the editing team already has so much on their hands. It’s going to be a long couple of nights for them.”