South Korea's Squid Game actor charged with sexual misconduct

The Squid Game actor O Yeong-su has been charged with sexual misconduct, South Korea spokesman said.

In January, the 78-year-old became the first South Korean to win a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actors in a series for his performance as a seemingly vulnerable old man in the mega-hit Netflix dystopian thriller.

According to local reports, the South Korean prosecution indicted him without detention on Thursday for allegedly improperly touching a woman s body in 2017.

He denies the allegation, according to the local media report.

An official from the Suwon district prosecutor's office told AFP that everything reported by local media on O is not factually incorrect.

After the news, local reports said Seoul's culture ministry decided to stop airing a government commercial about its regulatory innovation featuring O.

The Squid Game, which imagines a macabre world where marginalised people are pitted against one another in traditional children's games that turn deadly, became Netflix's most popular series launch, with an audience of 111 million in less than four weeks after its debut in 2021.

Following global fame won by the likes of K-pop band BTS and Oscar-winning film Parasite, the show's success has amplified South Korea's increasingly outsized influence on global popular culture.