Baek Jin-hee Reflects on Double-Contract Dispute and Early Fame After High Kick

Baek Jin-hee has revisited one of the most difficult stretches of her career, describing how sudden fame, anxiety, and an early contract dispute shaped the years around her breakout on High Kick! Revenge of the Short Legged.

The actress spoke about the period during a new appearance on the YouTube channel Genie Is Back, where she was asked to name the most painful moment of her entertainment career. Rather than isolate one incident at first, Baek said her early years in the industry were broadly difficult because she was working intensely while still lacking the experience to handle every new demand placed on her.

Her remarks offered a more personal look at a stage of her career that many viewers remember mostly through the popularity of High Kick. The sitcom, which aired in the early 2010s, introduced Baek to a wider audience and helped turn her from a rising performer into a familiar television face. But the attention, she said, arrived so abruptly that it changed even ordinary parts of daily life.

According to Baek, before High Kick she had felt like an ordinary person. After the show raised her profile, she found it difficult to go to crowded places such as supermarkets and subway stations. She described the experience of standing still while everyone around her seemed to be moving past, calling it the beginning of panic symptoms. She added that pottery helped her get through that time, giving her a way to steady herself away from the pace of public attention.

A Breakout Role With Private Costs

Baek also discussed an early double-contract dispute that unfolded around the time she was beginning work on High Kick. She said she was already under contract with one company when a manager told her that the arrangement had ended. Believing that information, she entered another agreement, only to later learn that the original contract had not been fully resolved.

The mistake, Baek explained, led to legal notices and the risk that a private agency issue could become a public obstacle just as she was starting to be recognized. She said she eventually used the money she earned from High Kick to pay penalties connected to the dispute. In the interview, she framed the incident as a hard lesson, saying it taught her not to trust too easily.

Reports on her latest interview also noted that Baek had previously addressed the same dispute on MBC’s Radio Star. At that time, she said the conflict dated back to her high school years, when a company contacted her after seeing her in an advertisement. She recalled later following a company executive to another agency because she believed the previous matter had been settled, before receiving notices from both sides.

That earlier account added a sharper picture of the financial and physical strain she associated with the episode. Baek said she had been required to pay a penalty exceeding ten times the original contract amount and that the stress became severe enough to affect her body. The newly released YouTube conversation placed those details within a broader reflection on why her 20s felt so demanding.

Why Her Comments Resonate Now

Baek’s comments stand out because they connect several issues that continue to follow the Korean entertainment industry: young performers entering complex business arrangements, managers acting as intermediaries, and the pressure on rising actors to protect a newly visible image. Her story does not present the dispute as an active legal battle, but as a formative experience that influenced how she views trust and self-protection.

The interview also complicates the usual narrative around breakout roles. For audiences, High Kick marked an exciting arrival for Baek. For the actress, the same period came with anxiety in public spaces, the stress of contract paperwork, and the fear that controversy could damage her momentum before her career had fully stabilized.

Baek has continued to build a long acting career since that time, but her latest remarks show how early entertainment success can carry hidden costs. By speaking about the dispute, the panic symptoms, and the way she endured that period, she reframed a familiar chapter of her career as both a professional breakthrough and a personal endurance test.

Her tone throughout the interview was not sensational. Instead, she presented the experience as something she survived and learned from, while acknowledging that she would not want to return to that version of her younger self. For fans who followed her from High Kick onward, the comments add context to the pressure behind a role that looked, from the outside, like a simple rise to fame.