South Korean actor Ryu Jun Yeol is getting a lot of flak for a property deal involving a family business that is said to have made a lot of money in a short amount of time.

The March 8 episode of an MBC current affairs and cultural show that looked at how celebrities make money through one-person agencies and corporate entities brought more attention to the controversy.

According to reports that Koreaboo cited, the show showed that the production team went to a building in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam. It is said that the property has two basement floors and seven floors above ground. It was sold in 2022 for about ₩15.0 billion KRW (about $10.2 million USD).

The report said that the seller was a company called Deep Breathing, which was run by a family and had Ryu Jun Yeol as the executive director and his mother as the CEO.

The same report said that Deep Breathing bought the property in 2020 for about ₩5.80 billion KRW (about $3.96 million USD). It is said that the company has made a lot of money from the sale of the land and the demolition of the building in just over two years.

The broadcast has also raised questions about how the purchase has been financed through the manner in which it has been done. It is stated in the report that Deep Breathing has been able to acquire around ₩4.80 billion KRW, which is approximately $3.27 million USD, in loans from the banks, which is around 80% of the purchase price. The actual investment is thought to have been around ₩1.00 billion KRW, which is about $682,000 USD.

During the broadcast, a former bank branch manager talked about how banks lend money for businesses to buy things.

The manager said, "For sole proprietors, banks evaluate them, but corporations don't."

The program reportedly used cases like this as examples of "debt-based" wealth building. This suggests that businesses may have fewer restrictions when getting loans for commercial real estate.

In the meantime, Ryu Jun Yeol's representatives said that the actor set up the personal corporation to handle his money and had originally planned to start a different business.

His side said that he had planned to build a house with a friend to start a clothing business, but the COVID-19 pandemic put the plan on hold, which is why he sold the building.

As the problem spread to Korean community forums, people quickly responded online. Many users on the forum theqoo wrote posts that were critical or doubtful.

A lot of people said things like, "Wow suits him, doing so many controversial things...", "He really is choosing to do hypocritical things." and "He is so disgusting."

Other comments said things like "Amazing...", "Not surprised...he looks like he would do something like that." and "Is there no way to block celebrities from doing this? Is the only way to catch them after going through an investigation? So this isn't technically illegal?"

The conversation is still going on online, and people are still arguing about Ryu Jun Yeol, celebrity real estate investments, and how Korean celebrities build their wealth.