Seen is a captured image of the SBS TV program on K-pop scandal. Seungri poses with Kim Lim in the pictures.

Singaporean socialite wins headlines

A week ago, few Koreans knew about Kim Lim. Now, almost everyone here appears to know her, the daughter of Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim who owns La Liga football club Valencia CF.

Two things contributed to the abrupt change over the past week _ an investigative TV program from local TV station SBS, and Seungri, the now retired K-pop star who is at the center of an ongoing sex-and-drugs scandal.

The two come at a time when Seungri faces suspicions that he ordered his employees to solicit prostitutes for a foreign investor at the Arena nightclub in Seoul.

The SBS TV program that aired March 23 raised the possibility that a Singaporean who was the daughter of the wealthy owner of a famous football club was the investor at issue. It also said that her brother might be related to the scandal.

But the program did not specify her name and her picture was blurred.

In comparison, Seungri called her “Kimmy” during an interview with a local newspaper last week. He said that she was the daughter of a famous football club owner, who he got to know in Singapore.

Seungri said that he looked for ladies, who would be travel companions to shop with “Kimmy.” That might exempt him from the suspicions over prostitution.

Different dates at Arena nightclub

Lim immediately rebuffed Seungri’s comments via an Instagram post. She admitted that she visited the Arena club and Seungri got her a VIP table. But she denied any involvement in the scandal.

She said there were no other patrons or staff who accompanied her group and claimed that this can be vouched for by the four people who were part of her group that night.

Lim said that she was embroiled in the case because she “was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

In all probability, Lim should not have had to explain anything because there are discrepancies in the date. Lim said she visited the nightclub on Dec. 9, 2015. But the leaked conversations of Seungri and his men show that the alleged instruction to solicit prostitutes happened on Dec. 6, 2015, according to SBS.

In other words, she might have been “at the wrong place but not at the wrong time.”

Seungri or his lawyers have not come up with an explanation for the discrepancy in the dates.

Brother and sister?

“Seungri is a close friend like a sibling. We help each other when each other is in trouble. I have never thought of him as a man. He is like a good younger brother,” Kim Lim said.
Following the reports on Kim Lim, people have shown great interest in who she is and how she and Seungri came to know each other.

Lim is a Singaporean model and daughter of billionaire Peter Lim, who holds a controlling stake in Valencia CF. The socialite is famous for uploading selfies to her Instagram account.

Lim posted a few pictures taken with Seungri on Instagram after watching a Valencia CF match in 2015. She also said she was quite close to Seungri.

In April 2016, Lim had an interview with the Sports Seoul, a sports daily in Korea, and said that Seungri was like her younger brother.

“He is a close friend like a sibling. We help each other when each other is in trouble. I have never thought of him as a man. He is like a good younger brother,” she told the sports daily.

Lim also said that she sent a charter plane to help Seungri. She elaborated the situation via an interview with 8 Days, a weekly magazine, last June.

"He called me to say he was stuck in Bali as they had closed the airport 'cos of the volcano eruption," she said. "So I asked my dad, who knows him too, and he said 'Okay lah, just send the plane.'"

 

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