Kim Ho-joong's DUI hit-and-run cost him every commercial in a week

Kim Ho-joong won the 2020 season of Mr. Trot, the television singing contest that turned ordinary singers into national celebrities in South Korea. Within months he had signed more than ten advertising contracts — convenience stores, home appliances, insurance — and his model fees were reported to exceed 2 billion won. He was, for a moment, the most bankable face in Korean entertainment.

On May 9, 2024, Kim Ho-joong crashed into a taxi while driving drunk in Goyang and left the scene. The taxi driver was treated for injuries and later settled with him, but the police opened a hit-and-run investigation and arrested him within days. The commercial reaction was immediate: KBS asked him to leave the cooking show Pyeonstorang and suspended him from future appearances, and GS25 cancelled the launch of the convenience meal product he had won on the show.

Within a week, the advertising industry had begun cutting ties. Industry estimates put his potential penalty fees at 200–600 million won, on top of the model fees already forfeited. In November 2024 he was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison; the appeals court confirmed the sentence on April 25, 2025. Every one of the contracts that had paid him 2 billion won was gone.