Do we like them?

Do we like IU (Lee Ji-eun)?

Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or acts found, a long record of giving, and one tidy apology; the record we could open is thinner on her LGBTQ+ views.

The story that best shows where IU sits in public life is from 2025. Her agency prepaid bread, drinks and gukbap for fans attending a Seoul rally calling for President Yoon's impeachment. Yoon's supporters criticised it and pinned a mocking nickname on her. She said in an interview that she had never watched the mocking videos, adding “I think that is something I have to endure.”

She has copped a lot of abuse online, and her agency's answer has been to take it to court rather than clap back. In May 2026 an appeals court gave a woman four months in prison, suspended for a year, for insult after posting malicious comments about IU, a harsher outcome than the earlier fine. Reports say the agency has pursued dozens of commenters. Abuse aimed at her never counts against her, and she has just kept working.

She has also been the target of a dodgy claim herself. In 2023 a citizen's complaint to police alleged she plagiarised six songs. Investigators dismissed it in August 2023 as not constituting a crime, and her lawyers said she co-composed only one of the six. Her agency called the allegations false and said it would take legal action.

The recent stoush is mild. Perfect Crown drew backlash over the term used in a coronation scene and the crown design, and the production apologised. IU wrote a handwritten note saying she should have studied the scripts more carefully and apologised without excuses. An apology alone proves nothing, but this was about a TV script, and the harm test isn't on the line.

The good stuff is the bulk of the file. On Children's Day 2024 she donated 100 million won to ChildFund Korea and shouted a meal for children at a welfare facility. In 2020 she gave 200 million won for COVID-19 relief. Giving at that scale, year after year, is the opposite of a publicity stunt.

So would we support her? Yes. The honest caveat is that the sources we could open are mostly about her giving, her legal fights with trolls and her work, and she hasn't said much on LGBTQ+ rights. Nothing nasty, a lot of kindness, and a tidy apology when she got something wrong.