Kim appeared on the October 2 broadcast and showed how he stays in an approximately 90-year-old house in Dongducheon. During the episode, he operated a generator to supply electricity, repaired cracks in the floor with cement, and cooked meat over a wood fire.
Kim explained that the house belongs to an older family friend and that he uses it while staying in South Korea between trips overseas.
After the broadcast, some viewers compared the property with road-view images dated July 2026 and questioned differences in the appearance of the yard. Others questioned why a generator was being used despite utility poles being visible nearby and how appliances such as the refrigerator received power.
As the speculation spread, other viewers pushed back against claims that Kim’s lifestyle had been staged. Some noted that he never said he lived at the property full-time and argued that occasional use of a generator could be reasonable for a house that is not regularly occupied.
The discussion has also renewed criticism of I Live Alone following an earlier controversy involving Jun Hyun-moo’s supposedly impromptu trip to Kazakhstan. The production team later acknowledged that staff travel and local filming arrangements had been prepared in advance and apologized for presenting the segment in a way that could lead viewers to believe the entire production had been arranged spontaneously.
As a result, some viewers argued that the program’s previous controversy has contributed to greater suspicion toward even small details shown in later episodes, while others praised Kim’s unconventional and free-spirited lifestyle.
Netizen Reactions
The sampled comments reflected lingering distrust toward I Live Alone following its previous staging controversy. Some defended Kim Min and argued that viewers were scrutinizing his lifestyle too closely, while others remained skeptical of how much of the episode was naturally occurring versus arranged for television.
1. Jun Hyun-moo was so shameless at first, insisting it wasn’t staged, but once it came out that there had been staging, they just acted like nothing happened and kept broadcasting without addressing it. How is anyone supposed to trust the show after that??
2. Leave Kim Min alone. He even wrote an explanation post... He’s naturally a free-spirited person, and as a viewer I was getting tired of I Live Alone just showing people flexing their fancy houses, so this was fun to watch for a change ㅋㅋ
3. Trust is scary like that. It’s so difficult to build, but it can collapse in a single moment...
4. Staging and setups need to stay within reason. The problem is when they go way overboard, and this episode feels excessive too. He’s not even that huge of a celebrity, so how much overseas filming could he possibly be doing for him to live like that when he’s in Korea??? Does he just spend the entire winter overseas? Does he only turn the refrigerator on in summer whenever he runs the generator??? At least keep the setups believable.
5. What about My Little Old Boy? Mr. House Husband? The Return of Superman? Divorce Deliberation Camp? I Am Solo? Do you seriously think I Live Alone is the only show that stages things? How naive.
6. It’s all staged. When he went to get cement, that old house’s storage room was spotless without even a single spiderweb ㅋㅋ
7. Just look at how the cameras were positioned in advance along the cast members’ routes. Even the things hanging and laid out outside, and the generator itself, look like they had only recently been put there. Don’t people just watch these shows assuming there’s some staging involved? ㅋㅋ
8. Someone who lives in the same neighborhood posted about it ㅋㅋ They said he really did live like that. If people refuse to believe even that, then there’s nothing you can do. This is the distrust that I Live Alone created.
9. The people saying we should just let it slide have a Chinese mindset. Standards need to be upheld. Someone who steals a needle eventually steals an ox, and if this isn’t called out now, are Korean broadcasts just going to fabricate everything and get away with it? Don’t you realize how dangerous it is to say, “Let Kim Min off because we like him”? How is that different from saying, “Just let it go because we’re close”?
10. From now on, people are going to watch with suspicion as the default setting ㅋㅋㅋ
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