Ms. Kim's family alleges that Mr. Kim started dating her in 2015, when she was 15 and he was 27, separating six years later. On HoverLab, a right-wing YouTube channel, her family showed multiple messages and photographs where the two appear intimate. In one letter from June 2018, during Mr. Kim's mandatory military service, he calls her "Saero Naero" (an affectionate nonsensical wordplay using her name) and professes that he misses her. The actor has acknowledged he wrote the letter, but denied any of its content was romantic in nature.

Ms. Kim, a former child prodigy, debuted as an actress in 2009 at the age of 9 and gained acclaim for roles in hit movies like "The Man From Nowhere." She was transitioning into more mature roles when a drunk driving incident in 2022 effectively ended her career. Her family alleges that Mr. Kim and his company, Gold Medalist -- which Ms. Kim joined in 2020 -- drove her to financial ruin by pressuring her over a massive debt stemming from penalties on acting and advertising contracts lost in the wake of the scandal.

In response to allegations of pedophilia, broadcasters have taken active steps to delete Mr. Kim's appearances on TV, including the recently aired variety show "Good Day" featuring G-Dragon, a member of the legendary K-pop group Big Bang. Netizens also created a petition for lawmakers called the "Kim Soo-hyun Prevention Act," which calls for the age of consent to be raised from 16 to 19. Signed by over 50,000, the petition will be formally discussed at the National Assembly.

"My first love and my world has collapsed," Ms. Kim told a friend in 2024, in a text message released by her family.

She grew up in a world that's notoriously dangerous for young women. It's an exhausting tale: The South Korean entertainment industry feeds off sexualized images of its workers, who are often minors. Behind the glittering long legs of 17-year-old girls on TV is a cruel industry. In the worst cases they can be coerced by agencies to "please the sponsors," or perform sex work for rich older men. Jang Ja-yeon, an actress who died by suicide in 2009 at the age of 29, is a famous example. She was forced to sexually cater to prominent politicians and corporate leaders, according to her suicide note.

"I frequently get messages from men who want to be my sponsor," said Kim Ga-young, a former member of girl group Stellar, known in the 2010s for their "sexy, rated R concept." Kim, now in her thirties, claims she gets messages regularly from men who send her genitalia photos, requests for sex and even received a screenshot of a high bank account balance to prove a man's ability to sponsor her. After the group disbanded in 2018, she talked publicly about how her agency repeatedly imposed "sensational" choreography and costumes on the members, who mostly debuted in their late teens or early 20s.

In one music video, one of the Stellar members was asked to deliberately spill some milk while drinking -- the slow trickle out of her mouth and down her cleavage created a sexually evocative scene that shocked the group's members after the video's release. Kim Ga-young has said she doesn't drink milk anymore, and mostly wears modest clothes, in fear of revealing her body in public.

"It was scary to say no, because the agency would bring up our contracts," she said.

K-pop, more than any other sector of South Korean entertainment, is grossly explicit about its preferences and sexualization of youth. Trainees, mostly women, join the industry often in their early to mid-teens. The average age of the mega girl-group New Jeans, or NJZ, was 16.4 years at their debut. "Uncle fans," or older male fans who like young female stars, have been a normalized phenomenon since Wonder Girls and Girls Generation in the 2000s.

"The word 'uncle' is a strategic choice made by agencies to walk the tightrope of sex. They want to appeal to a larger market of men in their 30s and 40s," culture researcher Kim Sung-yoon wrote in the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper. "It is significant that 'uncle' emphasizes kinship ... the word disguises the nature of the relationship as not being sexual."

In an industry that oversexualizes minors, is pedophilia really that shocking of an outcome? It feels like one logical extreme of a twisted world that most of us readily consume as "content."

For the producers of "Under 15," it probably seemed perfectly normal to create a show featuring children. It certainly wasn't the first of its kind -- plenty of audition programs have featured minors -- although it was the most explicit about promoting their age. "We will write a new K-pop history and make the world excited," they declared, boasting that their female participants, selected from 70 countries, were younger than New Jeans.

"'Under 15' is not a unique case. It must be viewed as an extension of the industry," wrote culture critic Ahn Hee-jae for the Hankyoreh newspaper. "We must go beyond asking 'From what age is it okay?' We must now ask whether it's okay to do this at all," referring to entertainment's exploitation of girls.

"Under 15" was cancelled, and for now, so is Kim Soo-hyun in the court of public opinion. Disney+ froze an upcoming K-drama starring Mr. Kim, responding to boycott threats from viewers. Advertisers have terminated contracts -- for one of South Korea's most sought-after celebrities his penalties are presumed to be astronomical.

But there is no smoking gun that confirms Mr. Kim's guilt in abusing a minor. After first denying that the relationship happened at all, he eventually admitted to dating Ms. Kim from 2019 to 2020, after she became an adult. He has rejected all other accusations and filed a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Kim's family. Even if Mr. Kim is found to have dated Ms. Kim in 2015, as the family alleges, it is unlikely that he will be punished. Back then, the age limit for statutory rape was 13, and only increased to 16 in 2020.

I first saw Kim Sae-ron at a movie theater in 2009. She was 9 years old, starring in her debut movie, "A Brand New Life." Her performance was hypnotizing, as an abandoned child in an orphanage eventually adopted to France. Even at that age she was one of those actors who could convey a lot with a little, like the subtle changing of her eyes. Kim wasn't a one hit wonder. I remember seeing her grow up over the years, happy that this promising child actor was still around, seemingly well-adjusted and successful.

Thinking about the loss of this young woman's life, I feel grief. Whatever circumstances led to her death, there is no justice. The life she could've lived is gone. But it's up to the rest of us to learn the lessons.