North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has not been seen in public for more than a month, and his top officials are denying “wild” rumors of a debilitating illness and/or a coup in Pyongyang. “There is nothing wrong with the health of Secretary Kim,” according to South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-Jae who quoted Kim Yang-Gon, a senior official of Kim Jong-Un’s.
Kim Jong-Un was last seen at a concert on September 3 with his wife, Ri Sol-ju. Little is known about Ri. Some analysts have said her name is “almost certainly is a pseudonym.” She was first identified as Hyon Song-wol, a former singer of the music group Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble. And then in 2012 she was identified as Kim’s wife/comrade. Ri might have given birth to a child in 2010 but no one knows for sure as she mysteriously disappeared for two months. In 2013, former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman returned from a trip visiting his friend Kim and reported to Western media that Ri had given birth to a healthy daughter named Ju-ae. Whatever happens to Jong-Un, Ri won’t likely return to her music career. But most deposed dictators’ wives end up in comfortable asylum, even when their husbands pay a heavy price.
