Park Ji-yeon South Korean Singer and Actress From Seoul

Early life

Park Ji-yeon, who works under the mononym Jiyeon, was born on 7 June 1993 in Seoul, South Korea. She attended Hyehwa Girls' High School for a short time and graduated from Lila Art High School in 2012. She chose not to go to university so that she could concentrate on her career.

Before her debut as a singer she worked as a child model. In 2007 she won the silver award at the APM Model Contest, and in 2008 she took the Model of the Year award for a school-uniform advertising campaign for the brand Smart. She joined Mnet's casting system and its company in 2008.

Career

Jiyeon made her first public appearance in May 2009 on the digital single "Women's Generation", a collaboration with Davichi and SeeYa. She debuted as a member of the girl group T-ara on 29 July 2009. She and Hahm Eun-jung were the two members of the group who had trained as actors before switching to singing, and her acting work has run alongside the group's music ever since. Other members of T-ara on record include Hyomin, Jeon Bo-ram and Park So-yeon.

On screen, she appeared in the drama Soul and in High Kick! 2 in 2009. In 2010 she starred in Master of Study and the youth drama Jungle Fish 2, and she played the lead in the horror film Death Bell 2: Bloody Camp, which is her earliest film credit. In October 2010 she began hosting MBC's music programme Show! Music Core. She voiced a character in the Korean dub of the animated film Gnomeo and Juliet in 2011, and in 2012 she joined the cast of the teen drama Dream High 2. In 2014 she was cast in Triangle, and later that year she began co-hosting The Show: All About K-pop on SBS M. The web drama My Runway, in which she plays Han Seo Yeon, was released on Netflix in December 2016. Her later screen work includes the film Gangnam Zombie (2023). In total, three screen credits are on record.

She released her solo debut on 20 May 2014, the EP Never Ever, becoming the first member of T-ara to debut as a solo artist. Its title track was also known as "1 Minute 1 Second". In July 2015 she collaborated with Jun-hyung of 2BiC on the song "Summer Love". After the group's contracts with MBK Entertainment expired in early 2018, she signed with the Chinese agency Longzhen Culture Development in May 2018, and with Partners Park in November of that year for activities in Korea. In December 2018 she released the winter ballad "One Day".

Her second EP, Senpass, was released on 26 December 2019. It has five tracks and includes the title song "Take A Hike", which was also released in a Chinese version. In 2019 she was cast in the KBS2 drama I Wanna Hear Your Song, and in 2020 she was announced for the web drama Next Door Witch J and for the series Imitation. She left Partners Park in July 2021 after her contract expired and signed with AnB Group on 18 February 2022. That year she also held her first solo fan meeting, RE:BLoom, and released a 2022 version of "Rolling", a song she first sang for the soundtrack of God of Study.

Recognition

In 2011 the newspaper Chosun named her one of the best acting idols. Forbes China placed her twenty-fifth on its 2017 Global Idol Chinese Popularity list.

Public roles

In 2010 she was a public relations ambassador for the National Pension Service. In 2015 she took part in an Arbor Day campaign, and in 2016 she joined the Support Women Comfort campaign, for which all proceeds went to the House of Sharing Foundation.

Personal life

Jiyeon has trained in taekwondo since the age of five and holds a third-degree black belt. She has shown her skills on several television programmes, which earned her the nickname "Strong Girl".