A North Korean pop star famous for her bizarre propaganda song, “Excellent Horse-Like Lady,” was reportedly executed years after the country’s unhinged leader Kim Jong-un took a romantic interest in her.
But, neigh!
Hyon Song-wol, apparently hoofed it back from the dead this week when she appeared in a tour of factories with the tubby tyrant, according to the Sunday Times of London.
The Moranbong Band frontwoman, whose hit 2005 tune is a tribute to hardworking textile factory workers, was photographed by Kim’s side during the visits and at the opening night of the country’s widely viewed Mass Games gymnastics performance last week, the paper reported.
South Korea’s The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Hyon, who was long rumored to be the married Kim’s girlfriend, and 11 other performers had been executed by a firing squad on the leader’s orders in 2013 for making a sex tape.
But the horse-themed hitmaker is alive and kicking. On Tuesday, she was named the new vice director of the North Korean ruling party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, state media reported.
Her popular song features the patriotic lyrics, “They say I am a virgin on a stallion, Mounting a stallion my Dear Leader gave me/All my life I will live to uphold his name!”
Hyon, 42, who is a member of the central committee of the Workers’ Party, has reportedly known Kim, 35, since they were teenagers.
Kim has a history of getting rid of people who are close to him.
In 2013, he reportedly had his uncle and former mentor, Jang Song-thaek, executed. He is also believed to have ordered the successful hit on his half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, in Malaysia in 2017.
In late May, The Chosun Igbo reported that Kim also ordered the “execution” of Kim Hyok-chol, his chief envoy on US affairs, for not properly preparing him for a nuclear summit with President Trump in Hanoi in February.
But it later emerged that Kim Hyok-chol is actually alive and in state custody.