‘Running Man”s Jee Seok-jin says he tried to quit the show three times

Running Man’s Jee Seok-jin recently opened up about the challenges he encountered during his time on the popular reality show.

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Yesterday (April 4), the comedian released a video on his YouTube channel, where he read the Running Man section of his entry on Namuwiki (South Korea’s open-source online encyclopedia).

While reading the section discussing his history as an MC before starring on Running Man, Jee revealed that he struggled to adjust to his role on the show. “[An outdoor variety show] really wasn’t a good fit. I had a really hard time at the beginning because of that,” he shared, as translated by Soompi.

“The role that an MC plays is different from the role of a player. As a player, I have to say the right comment and jokes at the right moment, and that kind of thing makes the position very different, so it’s true that I couldn’t adjust at the start.”

The difficulties Jee encountered during his time on the show led him to meet with production director Jo Hyo-jin, on three separate occasions, to say that he was quitting the show. “I said, ‘I don’t think I’m helping the show, and I don’t think this show is helping me either’,” Jee explained. “‘I think it might be better for both of us if I left.’”

In all of these meetings, Jee shared that Cho, and later fellow cast member Yoo Jae-suk, would encourage him to stay on the show instead – a gesture that Jee expressed his gratitude for.

Elsewhere in the video, Jee discussed how his initial mindset about not belonging on the show affected his presence in Running Man. “Of course that could happen in the beginning,” he explained, while reading a section about the criticism he received during the show’s earlier episodes.

“I didn’t think that I was a good fit for the show, so it’s possible that I didn’t have much of a presence. It’s not good to work with that kind of mindset, though.”

In other news, TVING has dropped a new poster for the forthcoming second season of its hit romance K-drama, Yumi’s Cells.

The streaming platform took to Instagram to share a new poster for the upcoming second season of the drama, featuring a shot of Yumi (played by Kim Go-eun) as she smiles up at her colleague Yoo Ba-bi (GOT7‘s Jinyoung) as he caresses her hair.

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