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Why North Korean leader Kim Jong Un never talks about his mother, Ko Yong Hui
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Among the many mysteries surrounding North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the secrecy regarding his mother stands out the most. For fifteen years, he has never publicly mentioned her by name. The legitimacy of his dictatorship relies heavily on the "Mount Paektu" bloodline. This lineage is tied to the mythical founder of the Korean people. In a country that prides itself on hereditary purity, the identity of Kim's mother is not just a secret. It is a potential threat to the regime.
According to popular belief, the story of the Koreas begins on Mount Paektu. This mountain is located on the border between China and North Korea. It is said to be the birthplace of Dangun, the mythical founder of Korea's first kingdom. Thousands of years later, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, reportedly used the mountain as a hideout while fighting against the Japanese. His son, Kim Jong Il, was said to be born on those same sacred slopes. This claim persisted despite reports indicating he was likely born in Russia. For decades, the mountain has been used to legitimize the Kim dynasty.
"Kim Jong Un became heir in his 20s despite having no achievements, solely because of the Paektu bloodline," wrote Ryu Hyun-woo, an exiled North Korean diplomat, in his book Kim Jong Un's Secret Vault. However, the reality of Kim's maternal lineage paints a different picture. Hundreds of miles away from Mount Paektu lies the city of Osaka. This was the historical capital of Japan and the place where Kim's mother, Ko Yong Hui, was born.
Biographers have pieced together that Ko was born in Osaka in 1952. Her parents were originally from Jeju Island, which is off the southern coast of what is now South Korea. As residents of Japan, Ko's family were known as "Zainichi Koreans." These were immigrants during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. When Ko was about ten years old, her family emigrated to North Korea. They were part of an estimated 93,000 Koreans who moved to North Korea between 1959 and 1984. They were lured by a resettlement scheme that promised an idyllic life with free healthcare, education, and jobs.
Initially, migrants to the North were viewed with envy. They brought cash, clothes, and home appliances from the capitalist neighbor to the south. However, they were also labeled "jjaepo." This is a disparaging term for a group considered to be contaminated by foreign and dangerous ideologies. North Korean society is deeply hierarchical. Some analysts compare it to a caste system. This strict social classification is known as songbun. The jjaepo belong to the "wavering class," which sits between the core and hostile classes. They are subjected to heavy state surveillance and are often denied admission to good universities or promising jobs.
This reality is a stark contrast to the Paektu narrative that Kim's family has long promoted. "The [regime's] Paektu bloodline is seen as sacred," says Kim Hyung-su of the Northern Research Association. "So the idea of the leader being a jjaepo's son is unimaginable."
Ko managed to escape the fate of her fellow Zainichi Koreans after she caught the attention of Kim Jong Il. He had already been groomed for succession. Intelligence shows he was already married to Kim Young Sook, the daughter of a high-ranking military official. This marriage was hand-picked by his father. He was also known to have two other mistresses. Despite this, Ko, a member of the elite Mansudae Art Troupe, caught Kim's attention. Her "natural beauty and dancing skills" were noted by Yoji Gomi, a Japanese reporter who published a book on Ko in 2025.
Reports suggest that Kim fell passionately in love with Ko. He went on to have three children with her. However, children born out of wedlock face severe stigma in North Korea. While Kim's official wife resided in the capital, Pyongyang, Ko and her children were kept 210 kilometers away in the coastal town of Wonsan. Although she never married the supreme leader, and their union was not acknowledged by the regime, Ko managed to live what Gomi calls a "Cinderella-like life."
Yet, it remained a fact that Ko was "never recognised as a daughter-in-law by Kim Il Sung," wrote Ryu. Nor was he ever publicly seen with her children. Had Ko won Kim Il Sung's approval, photos of him and his grandchildren would have been circulated far and wide, says Dr. Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute. Following Kim Il Sung's death, Kim Jong Il became North Korea's supreme leader. Ko became the country's de facto first lady. She accompanied her husband on military inspections and befriended his entourage. Kim would even seek her opinion before making policy decisions, wrote Fujimoto, Kim's former chef.
An official documentary produced in 2011 showed footage of Ko accompanying Kim on local tours. However, it never revealed her name or her songbun. The documentary was never publicly released. It was shown only to senior party officials in June 2012, says Dr. Cheong. It was later leaked and spread among ordinary citizens via smuggled USB drives. "As it spread... people's curiosity about Ko Yong Hui skyrocketed, so the regime quickly recalled [the documentary]," Dr. Cheong explains. Her background could call the regime's legitimacy into question. In 2004, Ko passed away from breast cancer at a hospital in Paris. Her death went unremarked by North Korean state media.
The question remains: How did a mistress's second son, and Kim Jong Il's youngest, end up inheriting power? Kim Young Sook, Kim's official wife, gave birth to two children. Since they were both female, neither was up for succession. Kim Jong Il also had two other mistresses aside from Ko: Sung Hae-rim and Kim Ok. Kim Ok did not bear any children. For a while, it appeared that Kim's firstborn son with Sung Hae-rim, Kim Jong Nam, could have been considered.
But Kim Jong Nam fell out of favor early. He studied abroad for more than a decade and was known to be fluent in both English and French. He questioned North Korea's hereditary succession and advocated reform, says Gomi, who exchanged emails with him for years. He also developed a reputation as a partier due to his frequent trips to casinos and jet-setting lifestyle. In 2017, after a few years of living in Macau in exile, Kim Jong Nam was assassinated in Malaysia. He was poisoned with a lethal nerve agent.
There was also Kim Jong Un's older brother, Kim Jong Chul. However, he was ruled out as an heir because of a severe opium addiction, according to ex-diplomat Ryu. Ko was believed to have actively lined up her second son, Kim Jong Un, for succession. This was done on the advice of Ko's sister, who said her son had to become the next leader or their family would be at risk, wrote journalist Anna Fifield in her book The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Un quickly became his father's favorite. This was largely due to his leadership potential and competitive nature. While he also briefly studied overseas in Switzerland, he was said to be a lot more insulated than his half-brother Kim Jong Nam. So when Kim Jong Il passed away in 2011, Kim Jong Un, who was 27 at the time, secured his spot on the throne.
Kim has since entrusted great power to his sister, Kim Yo Jong. She is believed to head the influential propaganda department, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. But the question of Kim's parentage hangs over the supreme leader to this day. Analysts believe it is why his birthday has not been declared a national holiday. This is unlike his grandfather's and father's, since drawing attention to his birth could raise thorny questions about his mother and why he was raised outside of Pyongyang.
The secrecy around his parentage could also be part of the reason why he was quick to publicly present his wife, Ri Sol Ju. Unlike his mother, Ri is believed to have come from an upper-middle class family in Pyongyang, according to South Korea's intelligence service. A former singer of a prestigious performance group, she was also sent to study classical singing in China in her youth. This is an indicator of good songbun. "The sense of illegitimacy and resentment Kim Jong Un experienced because of his mother's background paradoxically became a powerful motivation for him to publicly reveal his wife Ri Sol Ju and daughter Ju Ae at an early stage," says Gomi.
These public displays, Gomi adds, could stem from a "perceived 'deficiency'" surrounding Kim's mother's origins. So, what would happen if the origins of Kim's mother ever became public? "If it becomes known that his mother was of ethnic Korean origins from Japan, it would not only shake his legitimacy but also destabilise the hereditary system at its roots," said Ryu. "It would have the impact of a nuclear bomb on North Korean society."
Top image by Andro Saini of East Asia Visual Journalism and additional reporting by Grace Tsoi and Laignee Barron