Korea’s representative culinary expert ‘Big Mama’ Lee Hye-jung surprised viewers by revealing a kitchen state that is a complete 180-degree turn from the perfect homemaker image she shows on TV.
On May 6, the channel ‘Big Mama Lee Hye-jung’ showed Lee Hye-jung revealing her kitchen without filters to get help from an organization expert for spring. Lee Hye-jung explained the reason for the reveal, saying, “People say it’s great to live a minimal life, but in reality, I keep becoming a maximalist,” and “I want to get it cleaned up with a professional’s help and then pretend I did it myself to feel refreshed.”
Fitting for her reputation as a culinary expert, the revealed kitchen was packed with an enormous amount of dishes and tools. Lee Hye-jung confessed, “I felt like all the dishes would attack me like a tsunami if I opened the drawers, so I had no choice but to keep them closed,” adding, “I’d forget that fact and keep buying new dishes.” In fact, the cabinets were so overloaded they were bending under the weight, showing just how serious the situation was.
Lee Hye-jung couldn’t hide her embarrassment as the camera captured her raw, unorganized kitchen. She felt flustered, saying, “My face is perfectly made up, but I feel like my neck is dirty. I keep feeling like I’m being stripped naked.” She then made the scene burst into laughter with a self-deprecating joke, “I pretended to be great at housekeeping on TV, but today it looks like all those lies are being exposed.”
Lee Hye-jung’s “maximalist” lifestyle mirrors her bickering marriage with her husband, Ko Min-hwan. Having recently made headlines by honestly sharing her husband’s infidelity, their subsequent separation, and her thoughts on divorce across various shows, she still shows the side of an ordinary wife who feels hurt by her husband’s harsh tone. She is gaining public empathy by sharing her tumultuous daily life, including arguments with her husband over her habit of eating snacks late at night.
While lamenting her fate, saying, “I tried to avoid a fox only to meet a tiger,” fans continue to support Lee Hye-jung for her human side, as she never lets go of her passion for cooking and her concerns about housekeeping. Attention is now focused on whether Big Mama’s kitchen, reborn through a professional’s touch, can wash away the twists and turns of her tumultuous life and bring new vitality.
