Choi Soon-sil is a South Korean businesswoman and daughter of religious cult leader Choi Tae-min, whose covert influence over the presidency helped trigger one of the most explosive political scandals in modern South Korean history. In 2016, revelations that Choi had acted as a secret advisor and de facto decision-maker behind then-president Park Geun-hye sparked mass protests, Park’s impeachment, and a national reckoning over the entanglement of cult influence and state power.
Following the assassination of Park’s mother, Yuk Young-soo, then First Lady of South Korea, Choi’s father gained extraordinary sway over the grieving Park by claiming that her mother’s spirit appeared to him in dreams. He led a sect known as the Church of Eternal Life, which fused elements of Buddhism, Christianity, and Korean shamanism. U.S. diplomatic cables later described Choi Tae-min as a “Korean Rasputin”—a level of influence that his daughter would ultimately inherit.
During the Park administration, despite holding no official title, Choi Soon-sil had access to classified government materials, edited presidential speeches, and allegedly manipulated cabinet appointments and national policy. She leveraged her close relationship with Park to extract tens of millions of dollars in donations from South Korea’s leading conglomerates, funneling the funds into shell foundations under her personal control.
The exposure of Choi’s shadow role in state affairs ignited the 2016–2017 Candlelight Protests, a mass civil uprising that culminated in Park’s impeachment and removal from office. Choi was later convicted of abuse of power, bribery, and interference in state affairs, receiving a sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of ₩18 billion (approximately US$16.6 million at the time).
