Jung Joon-young

He was rumored to be dating his ‘We Got Married’ partner Jeong Yoo-mi, but he confessed that he isn’t good at relationships and that he prefers being single.

Jung was born on 21st February, 1989 in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is nicknamed ‘Raccoon’ by his friends and family.

His English name is Andrew, which also happens to be the English name of his elder brother, Joon Ha. He is referred to as ‘Little Andrew’ to avoid confusion.

His father is an international businessman and hence their family had to travel a lot when he was young. He has lived in Indonesia, China, Japan, France and Philippines. As a result, he can converse in five different languages – English, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese and Tagalog.

He couldn’t study in a regular school because of constant shifting and that made his childhood very lonely. He took private lessons at home which also included lessons pertaining to piano and violin.

He is also a fourth-degree black belt holder in Taekwondo. At 17, he went to the Philippines to do missionary work. He also started teaching Taekwondo and music to local children there. He went to South Korea without informing his family at the age of 19, to realize his dream.

His musical journey began in 2008 when he was signed by ‘Led Apple’ as a vocalist. He was trained by the company, which was set to release his debut album but unfortunately the idea was dropped due to some unresolved issues with his previous company.

In 2010, he started his own band, ‘Flower Mist’. He also started to work as a model for advertising agencies and played music in clubs.

His first major TV show was ‘Ulzzang Generation Season 5’, which he now says was a good opportunity to make money.

He auditioned for Mnet’s reality TV show, ‘Superstar K4’ as a solo artist. His voice and character impressed the judges and the audience alike. He was thus selected for the show.

His musical collaboration with Roy Kim turned out to be the best duet audition song ever. The song dominated all the music charts and won Mnet 20's Choice Hot Cover. It also won 2013's Most Popular Karaoke Song of the Year at the 3rd Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards.

He became one of the top three finalists but got eliminated in the sixth stage. He says that this show was the turning point in his music career.

He then went back to earning money through modelling and singing. He worked as a DJ and also appeared in other reality shows like ‘Happy Together’, ‘Radio Star’, ‘2 Days & 1 Night’ and ‘We Got Married: Season 4’.

He signed a music contract with CJ E&M, and released his first single ‘Spotless Mind’. His debut single managed to reach top spots on Mnet, Bugs and Soribada within hours of its release.