The president of South Korea has expressed regret for accepting a number of expensive Dior handbags and share adjustment in response to his wife’s string of scandals.
Addressing the country on tv, Yoon Suk Yeol said his partner, Kim Keon Hee, may have conducted herself much, but her description had been exceedingly “demonised”, adding that some of the states against her were “exaggerated”.
The president promised to set up an office to handle the initial lady’s official duties, but he turned down a request for an investigation into her activities.
Yoon’s explanation comes as he tries to revers a decline in his reputation in South Korea as a result of his wife’s controversy.
Late in 2023, left-wing YouTube channel Voice of Seoul published a video that purportedly showed Kim accepting a 3m won ($ 2, 200, £1, 800 ) Dior bag from a pastor, who filmed the exchange in September 2022 using a camera concealed in his watch.
In February, Yoon said that the footage was leaked as a “political manoeuvre”, and did not apologise.
South Korea’s Democrat Party, the opposition to Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, at the time labelled the president’s” blatant approach” as “hopeless”.
The scandal even caused rifts within Yoon’s group, with one head matching Ms Kim with Marie Antoinette, the queen of France famous for her luxurious lifestyle.
The first girl has long been accused of being a part of stock price manipulation by the opposition party. Yoon vetoed a bill earlier this year that demanded that his wife be subject to an investigation into those complaints.