Song Ji-hyo Drops Surprise Eight-Year Dating Confession
If you’ve been watching Running Man since the name-tag chases, the betrayals, the eras of Monday Couple jokes and family-level chemistry, you think you’ve seen it all. And yet, after all these years, Song Jihyo still finds a way to surprise us.
On the Running Man episode aired on December 14th, Jihyo casually revealed that she had dated someone for eight years—all while actively filming the show. Not a headline-grabbing confession, not a dramatic pause. Just Jihyo being Jihyo.
It came up when Ji Seokjin, in his usual probing-older-brother way, asked her when her last relationship was and how long it lasted. Jihyo, barely blinking, answered, “About four or five years ago? We dated for a long time. Around eight years.”
Cue instant disbelief. Ji Seokjin and Kang Hoon were visibly stunned, and honestly? Same. For someone who’s been on a weekly variety show for over a decade, where every micro-expression gets replayed, teased, and meme’d, that kind of privacy is almost unheard of.
When Seokjin asked what her ex did for a living, Jihyo’s response was peak Song Jihyo: “You didn’t ask, so I didn’t say,” she replied, calmly sipping her coffee like she hadn’t just dropped one of the biggest personal revelations in Running Man history. Kang Hoon, still processing, commented that an eight-year relationship must have ended painfully, while Seokjin kept repeating how shocking it was. Even the production team chimed in, joking that they were more surprised by this than by rumors of Kim Jongkook’s marriage, and that says a lot.
As a long-time fan, this moment didn’t feel like a betrayal of the image we know. If anything, it confirmed it. Song Jihyo has always drawn a clear line between her work and her private life. She shows up every week, fully committed, fully present, but never obligated to give more than she chooses.
Eight years of love, carried quietly, while building one of the most iconic careers in Korean variety television? That’s not just surprising, it’s admirable. Even after all these years, Song Jihyo remains exactly what she’s always been on Running Man: unpredictable, grounded, and entirely on her own terms.
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