“You going to work, fighting?” one asked.
“你会去工作吗，奋斗？”有人问。
In halting English, she gave a plaintive answer: “My life is always so fighting.”
她用不自然的英语给出一个令人神伤的回答：“我一辈子都在奋斗。”
By the time she climbed into bed at the end of the livestream in November 2019, she had reached a low point after a lifetime of struggle. As a child, she was abandoned by her parents. Her father at one point attempted suicide. After grueling training, she debuted in a K-pop group at 17, early even by the standards of the Korean hit-making machine.
2019年11月那场直播结束后，她爬上了床，此时此刻，她已经来到充满挣扎的人生的最低谷。她儿时被父母遗弃。父亲一度企图自杀。她在经过残酷的培训后加入了一个K-pop女团，当时只有17岁，即使以韩国造星机器的标准，这都属于非常小的年龄。
With the group, Kara, she found international fame, and Ms. Goo became a regular on Korean television, eventually anchoring her own reality series. But with celebrity came ravenous attacks on social media from a Korean public that is as quick to criticize stars as it is to fawn over them. Following a sordid legal fight with an ex-boyfriend, the harassment only intensified, as commenters criticized her looks, her personality and her sex life.
她通过这个名为Kara的组合成为国际明星，经常出现在韩国的电视上，最终还主持了自己的真人秀节目。但伴随着声名而来的是社交媒体上穷凶极恶的攻击，韩国民众对明星的责骂并不比追捧少。在与一名前男友打了一场丑陋的官司后，她受到的骚扰愈发严重，人们对她的长相、性格和她的性生活指指点点。
On Nov. 23, 2019, less than a week after her Instagram appearance, she posted a photo of herself tucked in bed, with the caption “Good night.”
2019年11月23日，那场Instagram直播不到一周后，她发了一张自己躺在床上的照片，并配了一句“晚安”。
The next day, she was found dead in her home in Seoul.
次日，有人发现她死在首尔家中。
Ms. Goo’s suicide, at the age of 28, shocked South Koreans. But it was just one of several among young Korean entertainers in recent years. Weeks before Ms. Goo’s death, one of her best friends, a fellow K-pop star known as Sulli, 25, also died by suicide. And last year, two performers — Jung Chae-yull, 26, an actress at the start of a promising career, and Moonbin, 25, a member of the K-pop band ASTRO — were found dead within days of each other.
年方28的具荷拉的自杀震惊了韩国人。然而近几年来，像她这样自杀的年轻韩国艺人还有许多。具荷拉去世几周前，她的好友、同为K-pop明星的雪莉也自杀身亡，年仅25岁。去年有两位艺人被发现死亡，两起事件相距只有几天，他们分别是前景一片光明的新秀郑彩律，年仅26岁；以及K-pop男团ASTRO成员文彬，年仅25岁。
The deaths have exposed a darker side to South Korea’s entertainment industry, a cultural juggernaut whose crushing demands often fall on the performers who fuel an insatiable assembly line of pop bands and streaming series.
这些死亡暴露了韩国娱乐业阴暗的一面，这个庞大的文化产业常常令艺人不堪重负，他们需要满足流行团体和流媒体连续剧生产线永无穷尽的需求。
The industry represents an extreme version of a pressure-packed South Korean society pummeled by educational, economic and other stresses. The country has the highest suicide rate among the world’s wealthiest nations, with the gap especially stark for women.
在教育、经济及其它种种因素的冲击下，韩国社会承受着重压，而娱乐产业是一个极端的体现。这个国家有着全世界富有国家中最高的自杀率，而女性的自杀问题尤其严重。
In the K-pop world, the squeeze starts early. Many young recruits are isolated from their families and deprived of the socialization that is essential to adolescence. They are often told what they can and cannot do in public — down to what they can eat, whether they can date and how they can interact with others.
在K-pop世界里，压力早早就出现了。许多年轻新人见不到家人，失去成长中必不可少的社会化过程。通常会有人告诉他们在公开场合能做什么、不能做什么——具体到可以吃什么，能否跟人约会，他们应该如何与彼此互动。
Acknowledging the heavy strains, Hybe, the agency that represents wildly popular acts like BTS and NewJeans, recently began allowing trainees to take extended mental health breaks, and last month, it announced the industry’s first in-house psychiatric clinic.
作为BTS和NewJeans等高人气团体的经纪公司，Hybe意识到这种沉重压力的存在，近日他们开始允许学员出于精神健康的考虑进行长时间的休息，上个月，公司宣布开设业内首个自有的心理诊所。
It is impossible to know whether such measures could have helped Ms. Goo. Before she died, she had already attempted suicide at least once. On top of the online harassment and troubles with her ex-boyfriend, she was having difficulty as a newly solo artist replicating the skyrocketing success she had enjoyed with Kara, which disbanded in 2016.
这样的措施能否帮到具荷拉已经无从得知。她在死前已经至少自杀未遂过一次。在网络骚扰和与前男友的纷争最激烈的时候，她作为一个刚刚单飞的艺人，正苦于难以重现Kara那样的大红大紫，该女团已经于2016年解散。
“Her work as a K-pop star got a lot of love and attention from fans,” Goo Ho-in, Ms. Goo’s older brother, said in an interview in Seoul. But once she went solo, “she worked less and less and she spent more and more time alone at home. So she received less and less love and attention from other people and she struggled, because she is someone who needs a lot of love and attention.”
“作为一名K-pop明星，她得到了许多粉丝的爱与关注，”具荷拉的哥哥具浩仁在首尔接受采访时说。但是在单飞后，“她工作的时间越来越少，越来越多地一个人呆在家里。于是她感受到别人的爱与关注的机会越来越少，她很煎熬，因为她是那种需要很多爱与关注的人。”
‘Who Else Can Understand Us?’
“又有谁能理解我们呢？”
Goo Hara’s life was precarious almost from the start.
具荷拉的人生几乎从一开始就处于动荡不安中。
When she and her brother were in elementary school, their mother left them to be raised by their father in the southwestern city of Gwangju. Not long after, Mr. Goo found his father passed out and foaming at the mouth after he had swallowed more than 20 sleeping pills. “What made her so broken is her environment growing up,” Mr. Goo said of his sister.
她和哥哥还上小学的时候，母亲离开了，把他们交给父亲抚养，他们生活在西南部城市光州。此后不久，具荷拉发现父亲在吞下了20多片安眠药后昏迷，口吐白沫。“她的崩溃是源于成长的环境，”具浩仁这样评价他的妹妹。
The siblings moved in with an aunt, an uncle and younger cousins, but they always felt like a burden, Mr. Goo said. Their father, who survived the suicide attempt, left to work construction jobs around the country and visited his children only three or four times a year, Mr. Goo said. Through Mr. Goo, the father declined a request for an interview.
两兄妹搬到一个阿姨家，与她和姨夫、他们年幼的子女一起生活，但具浩仁说，他们总感觉自己是个拖累。他说父亲自杀未遂后开始去各地的建筑工地干活，一年只回来三四次看望孩子。父亲通过具浩仁拒绝了采访请求。
When Mr. Goo moved in with another uncle, Ms. Goo stayed with their aunt and enrolled in a local dance school for students who aspired to K-pop stardom. As she recounted in a TV documentary, she would often practice until 11 p.m. “I went to classes even when I was sick and had nosebleeds,” she said. “If I didn’t practice, I got nervous.”
后来具浩仁搬到了另一位叔叔家，具荷拉仍然在阿姨家，并进入当地一个舞蹈学校学习，里面的学生都梦想着成为K-pop明星。在一部电视纪录片中，她回忆当时经常训练到夜里11点。“就算生着病，流着鼻血，我都会去上课，”她说。“一旦不练习我就会紧张。”
Their father reappeared suddenly when the siblings were in their teens, telling them to pack up for a move to Seoul, where they met a new stepmother, Mr. Goo said. It had been years since they had heard from their mother, who is named only as Ms. Song in redacted court documents. She could not be reached for comment.
具浩仁说，在他们兄妹十几岁时，父亲突然又出现了，让他们收拾行李搬到首尔，在那里他们见到了新的继母。他们已经多年没有母亲的消息了，在经过编辑的法庭文件中，他们母亲的名字仅写为宋女士。我们无法联系到她获得评论。
Ms. Goo began to audition regularly in Seoul, and within two years she was signed by an entertainment agency. Three months after she started official training, she debuted as one of five members of Kara, which became a top girl group.
具荷拉开始定期在首尔参加试镜，不到两年就被一家娱乐经纪公司签下。开始正式训练三个月后，她作为女团Kara的五名成员之一出道，Kara后来成为了顶级女子团体。
A frequent guest on variety shows, she competed against other K-pop stars in boxing, arm wrestling or ssireum, a style of Korean folk wrestling. Some fans called her “Goo Barbie.” In 2014, she starred in her own reality TV show, “Hara On & Off: The Gossip,” which gave the illusion of peering into her private life.
作为综艺节目的常客，她经常与其他K-pop明星比试拳击、掰手腕或韩国民间摔跤。一些粉丝称她为“具芭比”。2014年，她出演了自己的真人秀节目《Hara On&Off: The Gossip》，这个节目让人有窥探她私生活的感觉。
There may have been more than a hint of truth in an episode in which she hosted a group of makeup artists, hair stylists and production assistants at her home to cook a meal. These were her closest friends, she said. Because of her work and fame, she could trust few people. “Who else can understand us even if we talk to them?” Ms. Goo said.
真人秀的其中一集可能揭示了不只一丝的真实情况，她在家中招待一群化妆师、发型师和制作助理，做了一顿饭。她说，这些都是她最亲密的朋友。因为工作和名气，她可以信任的人很少。“即使我们跟他们讲，又有谁能理解我们呢？”具荷拉说。
On social media, Ms. Goo seemed to subscribe to the theory that any attention was good attention. “What matters is how many comments and how many views,” she said in another episode of “Hara On & Off.” “What they say in the comments is not important.”
对于社交媒体，具荷拉似乎赞同这样一种理论，即任何关注都是好事。“重要的是有多少评论和浏览量，”她在另一集真人秀节目中说。“他们在评论里说了什么并不重要。”
Her detractors could be cruel. When she had plastic surgery on her eyelids and uploaded a photo, commenters mocked her.
批评她的人有时很残酷。她做双眼皮手术后上传了一张照片，结果遭到了评论者的嘲笑。
After Kara disbanded, Ms. Goo released a solo album that did not sell well. But she still appeared regularly on TV variety shows. On one of them, in 2018, she met Choi Jong-beom, a hairstylist with a strong social media following in his own right. They began dating, and he moved in with her.
Kara解散后，具荷拉发行了一张个人专辑，但销量不佳。但她仍然经常出现在电视综艺节目中。2018年，在一档综艺里，她认识了崔钟范，一位在社交媒体上拥有众多粉丝的发型师。他们开始约会，崔钟范还搬进她家。
They broke up after three months. When Mr. Choi returned to Ms. Goo’s house to collect his belongings, he entered late at night while she slept, using a door passcode — numbers that corresponded to their first date — to let himself in.
三个月后，他们分手了。当崔钟范想回具荷拉家收拾行李时，他趁着她深夜熟睡，输入大门密码——对应他们第一次约会日期的数字——进入了具荷拉的家。
Ms. Goo woke up and the two began fighting, leaving them both scratched and bruised. Mr. Choi posted pictures of his injuries on social media and sent a message to a celebrity news outlet, suggesting he had a salacious tip about Ms. Goo.
具荷拉醒来后，两人开始争吵，身上都留下了抓伤痕迹。崔钟范在社交媒体上发布了自己的伤痕照片，并给一家名人新闻媒体发了一条信息，暗示他手上有关于具荷拉的黑料。
He also sent Ms. Goo a sex video recorded on his phone and threatened to release it publicly, according to lawyers who represented Ms. Goo in a criminal lawsuit against Mr. Choi. Against the initial advice of those lawyers, who thought she would suffer a backlash, Ms. Goo decided to report to the police both the altercation and what she said was a blackmail attempt.
据代表具荷拉对崔钟范提起刑事诉讼的律师称，崔钟范还给具荷拉发了一段用他的手机录制的性爱视频，并威胁要公之于众。这些律师最初认为具荷拉会受到舆论的反弹，但她没有听取律师的建议，把这场争吵和她所说的勒索企图告诉了警方。
“She was actually risking her livelihood as a celebrity by taking or making it known that there was this sex video,” said Michael Chang, a lawyer with Shin & Kim, a large firm in Seoul that represented Ms. Goo.
代表具荷拉的首尔大型律师事务所Shin&Kim的律师迈克尔·张说：“通过拍摄或让人知道这段性爱视频的存在，她实际上是在拿自己作为明星的生计冒险。”
Once the media learned of the video, the incident escalated into a full-blown frenzy. Mr. Choi told one news outlet that Ms. Goo had recorded the footage herself, and told another that she had an “explosive personality.”
媒体得知这段视频后，事件引发了一场全面的狂热。崔钟范告诉一家新闻媒体，是具荷拉自己录制了这段视频，并对另一家媒体说她“性格火爆”。
Ms. Goo tried to tamp down the spiraling hysteria, telling an internet news daily that she wanted to apologize and halt the “ungainly war of attrition” in which the two ex-lovers were “slinging mud at each other like little children.”
具荷拉试图平息这种疯狂的热度，她告诉一家互联网新闻日报，她想道歉并停止这场“不雅的消耗战”，他们作为曾经的恋人“像小孩子一样互相泼脏水”。
Retreating Into Isolation
退入孤立状态
Before Ms. Goo was scheduled to testify in the criminal suit accusing Mr. Choi of blackmail, she posted a message on Instagram in May 2019.
在指控崔钟范敲诈勒索的刑事案件中，具荷拉被安排出庭作证，在出庭之前，她于2019年5月在Instagram上发了一个帖子。
“I am tired of pretending that I am happy and everything is OK,” she wrote. “I don’t want to cause concern among other people.” Five days later, another post appeared with a cryptic caption: “Goodbye.”
“我已经厌倦了假装自己很快乐，一切都很好，”她写道。“我不想让其他人担心”。五天后，她发了另一个帖子，文字只有隐晦的两个字：“再见”。
Her manager found her unconscious in her home and rushed her to the hospital. When her brother visited, she was still being administered oxygen but immediately wanted to check her phone. “She was looking for articles about her,” he said.
她的经纪人发现她在家中昏迷不醒后急忙将其送往医院。当哥哥去探望时她还在输氧，但立刻就想查看手机。他说：“她要找关于她的文章。”
In response to news about the fight with her ex-boyfriend, commenters online had criticized her “terrifying personality.” Even in mundane selfie posts, people called her “low quality” or sniped that “her previous face was better.”
对于她与前男友互殴的新闻，网友批评她“性格可怕”。即使是在普通的自拍帖子下面，也有人评价她“长得不行”，或讥讽说“她以前的脸还好看点”。
Mr. Choi was eventually found guilty of assault and intimidation. A judge sentenced him to one year in prison. Through his lawyer, he did not respond to requests for comment. A court in Seoul ruled in a separate lawsuit in 2022 by Goo Ho-in and his father that Mr. Choi must pay 78 million won (about $60,000) in a settlement to the Goo family.
崔钟范最终被判犯有袭击和恐吓罪。法官判处他一年监禁。他没有通过律师回应置评请求。首尔一家法院在2022年由具浩仁及其父亲提起的另一起诉讼中裁定，崔钟范必须向具家支付7800万韩元（约合42万元）的和解金。
During this period, Ms. Goo seemed to shut herself off from the few people she trusted.
在这个时期，具荷拉似乎将自己与少数几个她信任的人都隔绝开了。
“She was the kind of person who wouldn’t express her struggles very much, and she kept things inside,” said Choi Ran, a makeup artist who knew Ms. Goo from her earliest days in Kara and even lived with her at one point. But in the months leading up to Ms. Goo’s death, she had isolated herself, and Ms. Choi only read about her famous friend’s troubles in the news.
“她是那种不会讲太多自己的苦恼的人，她把事情都放在心里，”崔兰（音）是一位化妆师，她在具荷拉刚加入Kara时就认识了她，甚至一度和她住在一起。但具荷拉在去世前的几个月里一直不与外界联系，崔女士也只能在新闻中看到这位名人朋友的烦恼。
In November 2019, as Ms. Goo prepared for a tour in Japan, where she had built a fan base during her time in Kara, she seemed to rally, inviting members of her retinue for dinner, Ms. Choi said.
崔女士说，2019年11月，具荷拉准备去日本巡演，她在Kara期间在那里积累了一批粉丝，她似乎振作了起来，会邀请随行人员共进晚餐。
Days later, disaster struck. Sulli, an outspoken K-pop star who had drawn her own fierce social media criticism for appearing in public without a bra and discussing her social anxiety, was found dead at her home.
几天后，不幸降临了。雪莉是一位直言不讳的K-pop明星，曾因不穿胸罩出现在公共场合和谈论自己的社交焦虑症而在社交媒体上招致了猛烈抨击，她被发现死于家中。
Ms. Goo and Sulli had long bonded over their shared experiences dealing with a zealous and at times unforgiving fan base. In a tearful farewell posted online from Japan, Ms. Goo vowed to “work harder and live harder.”
具荷拉和雪莉因她们都面对过狂热的、有时甚至是无情的粉丝而结下了深厚的友情。在日本，具荷拉在直播里泪流满面，她向雪莉道别，誓言要“更努力地工作，更努力地生活”。
After her tour, she went back to her home in Seoul, a two-story brick villa in the upscale neighborhood of Cheongdam surrounded by luxury boutiques and restaurants. She had recently invited a former classmate to stay with her because she was afraid to live alone.
巡演结束后，她回到首尔的家，这是一栋位于清潭洞高档社区的两层砖瓦别墅，周围环绕着豪华精品店和餐厅。因为害怕一个人住，她不久前邀请了一位以前的同学搬来同住。
The house was so spacious that sometimes they would text each other — “What should we eat for dinner?” or “Let’s go to sleep at 9” — from different parts of the villa, the friend, Goo Da-hae, who is not related to Ms. Goo, said in a telephone interview.
这位名叫具多海（音）的朋友在接受电话采访时说，那栋别墅非常大，有时他们会从不同房间给对方发短信——“晚饭吃什么”或者“9点就睡觉吧”。她和具荷拉没有血缘关系。
Mr. Goo knew his sister was depressed but thought she had stabilized upon her return. “She looked better than I thought she would,” he said. She was encouraging her brother and sister-in-law to have children, and had even helped pay for visits to an obstetrician. It seemed as if she was looking ahead to a new phase.
具浩仁知道他的妹妹情绪低落，但认为她回来后情绪已经稳定。他说：“她看起来比我想象的要好。”她鼓励哥哥和嫂子要孩子，甚至还帮忙支付了看产科医生的费用。她似乎在期盼一个新的人生阶段。
The weekend she died, Mr. Goo offered to visit, but his sister told him she was going to a party. A maid discovered Ms. Goo’s body on Sunday, Nov. 24. The police found a handwritten note “lamenting her personal situation” and declared the death a suicide.
具荷拉去世的那个周末，具浩仁提出要去看她，但妹妹说她要去参加一个聚会。11月24日周日，一名女佣发现了具荷拉的尸体。警方发现了一张“哀叹她个人处境”的手写纸条，并宣布其为自杀身亡。
On the day of Ms. Goo’s funeral, her brother learned that his wife was pregnant. Ms. Goo’s mother emerged from her long absence to claim half of Ms. Goo’s estate, her legal share.
在具荷拉葬礼当天，她的哥哥得知妻子怀孕了。他们消失已久的母亲突然出现，要求获得具荷拉一半的房产，称这是属于她的法定份额。
Mr. Goo, his father and his aunt filed a lawsuit arguing that Ms. Goo’s mother should receive nothing. A judge reduced her share to 40 percent, and Mr. Goo filed a petition to change the law so that parents who abandoned their offspring in childhood would be barred from inheriting any part of their estate. The National Assembly has yet to act on what sponsors are calling the Goo Hara law.
具浩仁、他的父亲和姑姑提起诉讼，认为母亲不应该得到任何遗产。法官将她的份额减少到了40%，具浩仁则申请修改法律，要求禁止在童年时期遗弃子女的父母继承遗产的任何部分。国民议会尚未根据提案人所称的《具荷拉法》采取行动。
Ms. Goo’s brother said he had mostly made peace with her death. “I decided that if she died because there was nothing else she could do, and that choice would make her feel comfortable,” he said, “then I would respect her choice.”
具荷拉的哥哥说，他对她的死基本已经释怀。“我想清楚了，如果她的死是因为她没有其他办法了，而这个选择会让她的内心获得平静，”他说，“那么我尊重她的选择”。
For fans, the memory of Ms. Goo lingers. At a K-pop awards ceremony in Osaka, Japan, her former band, Kara, reunited to debut a new single. Two concertgoers brandished paper fans imprinted with the faces of the band members, including Ms. Goo.
而对于粉丝来说，关于具荷拉的记忆挥之不去。在日本大阪举行的一次K-pop颁奖典礼上，她的前组合Kara的其他成员重聚并推出了一首新单曲。两名演唱会观众挥舞着印有包括具荷拉在内的女团成员面孔的纸扇。
“When she passed away, every day was so painful, and I was crying every day,” one of the concertgoers, Natsumi Yatabe, said. “When the day of her death comes around, I think about her and start to tear up again.”
“她去世的时候，每天都很痛苦，我每天都哭，”其中一名叫矢田部夏美的观众说。“每当她的忌日快到的时候，我就会想起她，又止不住眼泪。”
A video montage shown onstage included footage of Ms. Goo. Her name went unmentioned.
演唱会舞台上播放的视频中有具荷拉的镜头。但她的名字无人提及。
“Move again, we waited for this time,” the band sang. “Roller-coaster ride, strong survive.”
“再出发，我们等待这一刻，”女团唱道。“就像坐过山车，强者生存。”
Su-Hyun Lee和Choe Sang-hun自首尔、Hikari Hida自东京对本文有报道贡献。
Motoko Rich是时报驻东京记者，领导时报对日本新闻的报道。
John Yoon是时报驻首尔记者，报道突发新闻和热门新闻。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
