She always makes sure to walk at least a few feet behind her baby-faced brother and stay away from nearby cameras. She looks so pale and frail that a strong wind seems to knock her over.
In fact, compared to her obese and dour-looking sister – North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un – she comes across as a gentle, even charming, soul who couldn’t hurt a fly.
When her brother met President Trump at a historic summit in 2019, she was seen peeping shyly from behind a wall. Observers found it almost adorable.
And yet, according to a groundbreaking and insightful new book, those who judge Kim Yo-jong by her looks may be making a fatal mistake.
Former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il’s youngest child, thought to be 35, is actually a ruthless politician (even by the standards of their brutal family) who aspires to succeed his brother and whom his father regards as the ablest of his offspring looks at .
Yo-jong may even face an explosive power struggle with her niece – Jong-un’s daughter Ju-ae – who is believed to be only ten years old but has already been publicly celebrated as her father’s heir apparent.
According to a groundbreaking and insightful new book, those who judge Kim Yo-jong by his looks may be making a fatal mistake.
The youngest child of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, thought to be 35, is actually a ruthless political activist who aspires to succeed his brother Kim Jong-un (pictured with his sister) and whom his father considers the most capable of looked at his offspring.
But judging by what this new book reveals about Aunt Yo-jong with her “typical Mona Lisa grin,” it would be foolish to assume that little Ju-ae will one day sit on the throne of the Hermit Kingdom.
For Yo-jong, North Korea experts say, he is “the mastermind behind the operation” — and a terrifying mastermind at that.
According to US academic Sung-Yoon Lee, whose new book The Sister is the first detailed look at Yo-jong, some officials in Pyongyang have not called her a “bloodthirsty demon” and a “devil woman” for nothing.
Yo-jong, her brother’s de facto deputy, can have even the highest government officials executed with just one word.
In 2021, she was appointed to the country’s most powerful body — the State Affairs Commission. And ever since, says Lee, she has wielded “the ultimate power of the cruel dictator; the power to play god and decide who lives and who gets killed.
Yo-jong was infatuated with him from an early age and remained largely hidden from the public eye for decades. But in 2018, she caused a media frenzy when she attended the Winter Olympics in South Korea as her country’s official representative and was pictured seated next to Vice President Mike Pence.
Journalists hailed the glamour, delicacy and charm her chubby brother so lacked, and many wondered if North Korea could finally move on from its horrific past.
Instead, Lee predicts, Yo-jong will be her 39-year-old brother’s zealous and stuffy chief propagandist, and potentially “wilder and more ruthless” than him.
Yo-jong may even face an explosive power struggle with her niece – Jong-un’s daughter Ju-ae (pictured with her father) – who is believed to be just ten years old but has already been publicly hailed as heir to her father’s throne.
But judging by what this new book reveals about Aunt Yo-jong with her “typical Mona Lisa grin,” it would be foolish to assume that little Ju-ae will one day sit on the throne of the Hermit Kingdom. (Pictured: North Korean missiles).
And given his health struggles, including suspected heart disease, diabetes and obesity – the regime has all but admitted he was nearly killed by Covid-19 – North Korea may need a new leader sooner than expected.
Of course, obtaining information about the extremely secretive dictatorship is immensely difficult, but in 2021 Yo-jong reportedly ordered “several executions of high-ranking government officials for merely being ‘annoying'”.
Those she found “less uncomfortable” were simply exiled – along with their utterly innocent families – to internment camps and gulags “where a life of grueling hard labor, beatings, torture and starvation rations awaited them.”
According to Lee, rumors of Yo-jong’s “need to clean and kill” soon spread so much that high-ranking officials gasped in their presence. When she approached them, they averted their eyes or stared at the ground.
Ignoring her is apparently far safer than trying to win her praise – because “just being approved of by her could, in due course, bring one to disgrace and touch death.”
Yo-jong is a computer science graduate and doesn’t just reserve her bloodthirsty impulses for crouching officials. On the few occasions she was allowed to bare her teeth on the international stage, she made it clear that her finger on Pyongyang’s nuclear button would be just as troubling as that of her saber-rattling brother.
In April last year, the First Sister dropped the Sweetness Act and warned South Korea that if its military “violates even an inch of our territory, our nuclear forces will inevitably have to do their duty… and a terrible attack will be launched.” .
The South Korean army, she added, “will suffer a miserable fate bordering on total destruction.”
Yo-jong had been infatuated with him since childhood and remained largely hidden from the public. But in 2018, she caused a media frenzy when she attended the Winter Olympics in South Korea as her country’s official representative and was pictured seated next to Vice President Mike Pence.
Journalists praised the glamour, delicacy and charm her chubby brother so lacked. But Yo-jong is actually her 39-year-old brother’s zealous and stuffy chief propagandist, and possibly “wilder and more ruthless” than him. (Pictured: Yo-jong lurks behind her brother).
As head of propaganda, she has also demonstrated a flair for forging particularly heinous attacks against her nation’s enemies.
When South Korea elected its first female leader in 2014, Pyongyang’s state media ran quotes calling her an “evil toady”, “dirty old prostitute” and “moody whore”.
President Obama has been brazenly branded the “bad black monkey” and a gay Supreme Court Justice in Australia has been called a “disgusting old liar with a 40+ year history of homosexuality”.
All comments were either written or signed by Yo-jong.
Certainly she has come a long way since 2011 when her brother succeeded her father. At the time, few people outside of Pyongyang knew her name.
North Korea is also a strictly patriarchal society. And one in which, despite all socialist ambitions, the women generally take care of the family at home while the men take care of politics.
Still, Yo-jong’s own parents are said to have been the first to recognize that she was something special. Though they felt they couldn’t acknowledge it in public, instead their father praised their disappointing basketball-obsessed brother.
Kim Jong-il had seven children by four women, either wives or concubines, but his greatest affection was for a dancer named Ko Yong-hui, who bore him both Jong-un and Yo-jong.
Kim Jong-il (pictured) had seven children by four women, either wives or concubines, but his greatest affection was for a dancer named Ko Yong-hui, who bore him both Jong-un and Yo-jong.
Yo-jong’s own parents are said to have been the first to realize that she was special. Even if they felt they couldn’t publicly acknowledge it. (Pictured: North Korean soldiers march in a parade).
She and her older brother Kim Jong-chul lived on the ruling family’s gated estate and were given every luxury, including the finest food and toys money could buy, while their countrymen languished in poverty.
By the early 2000s, Jong-chul was all but ready to succeed her father – until 2009, when it was revealed that wasn’t the case.
According to the family’s sushi chef, his father suddenly decided that Jong-chul “wasn’t good because he was like a little girl.”
And while Jong-chul reportedly now leads a quiet life in Pyongyang, occasionally appearing at Eric Clapton concerts in far-flung countries like Singapore and London, the actual “little girl” in the family was clearly of sterner stuff.
As a child, her proud parents addressed her as “the sweet princess”, although she was known for being strong-willed and stubborn.
Interestingly, the couple referred to their sons as “Big Brother” (Jong-chul) and “Little Brother” (Jong-un) from their sister’s perspective.
Shortly after her birth in 1987, she became the “axis of the royal family,” always sitting next to her father at meals while her brothers sat further down the table.
At the age of eight she was so sure of herself that she fired her personal assistant. When she was nine, she physically dragged her 16-year-old older brother from a women’s theater on the family estate after he sneaked in.
As a child, her proud parents addressed her as “the sweet princess”, although she was known for being strong-willed and stubborn.
Shortly after her birth in 1987, she became the “axis of the royal family,” always sitting next to her father at meals while her brothers sat further down the table.
She and her brothers were sent to school in Switzerland, using pseudonyms and pretending to be the children of North Korean diplomats.
Her father was a psychopath who had his own half-brother Hyon murdered in 2007 to protect his children’s inheritance rights. In the 1980s, he tried to assassinate the South Korean president and blew up a passenger plane in one of many terrorist attacks.
Lee says Jong-un and Yo-jong clearly both inherited his murderous instincts. In fact, Jong-un is suspected of having murdered his own half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, at Kuala Lumpur Airport with a nerve agent in 2017.
It remains to be seen what his sister would be capable of. But in the meantime, she remains an increasingly powerful and vengeful presence in the background.
She is believed to have played a key role in government as early as the age of 21, when she was spotted following her father to an important meeting with Bill Clinton.
And unlike her supreme leader brother, she can speak English – a notable advantage when it comes to world politics.
When the US delegation cracked a joke during a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018, they laughed while Kim Jong-un stared blankly.
This could be one of the reasons why Jong-un clearly relies on his sister and holds her to himself.
Her father was a psychopath who had his own half-brother Hyon murdered in 2007 to protect his children’s inheritance rights. Yo-jong clearly inherited his murderous instincts.
During Kim Jong-il’s eulogy in 2011, his daughter – apparently overcome with emotion – suddenly left the official cast.
For anyone else, such an outrageous breach of protocol at a sacred ceremony would have been worse than “half-hearted clapping” and punishable by death.
But since the early days of her brother’s rule, Yo-jong has been “untouchable,” says Lee.
Not that ordinary North Koreans knew: the state media didn’t mention her once until March 2014, all to say that she had voted for her brother in an “election”.
She was mentioned twice more this month for accompanying Jong-un to concerts. On both occasions, her name came last on the list of more than a dozen contestants, unrelated to her “blue blood.”
All in all, it is therefore hardly surprising that her private life remains a mystery.
In 2018, while traveling to South Korea for the Winter Olympics, she once appeared without a coat and appeared to have a slight lump around her stomach.
Intelligence analysts speculated she might be pregnant, and South Korean media claimed she confirmed this to Olympic officials. As for the likely father, she reportedly married Choe Song, the son of a government official, in 2014. It is also claimed that she had a child in 2015.
Jong-un is clearly dependent on his sister and keeps her close. From the first days of his rule, Yo-jong was “untouchable”.
Intelligence analysts speculated in 2018 that she might be pregnant. As for the likely father, she reportedly married Choe Song, the son of a government official, in 2014. It is also claimed that she had a child in 2015. (Pictured: Yo-jong and her brother).
According to Lee, Yo-jong and her brother have developed a “good cop, bad cop” strategy on the world stage, in which she uses her femininity and deceptive charm to offset Jong-un’s sullen aggression.
But while it may appear to the public that she’s playing a subservient role—like standing happily by and handing her brother a pen to sign the historic joint statement with President Trump in Singapore in 2018—so can the appearance fool here.
In 2019, Jong-un took a long train ride to Vietnam for a second meeting with Trump. During the drive, he and his sister were filmed on camera at a rest stop, standing alone while he smoked and she held out a crystal ashtray with both hands.
Some commentators said it smacked of her submissiveness, but in reality, Lee said, she made sure he didn’t leave cigarette butts with traces of his DNA for foreign intelligence agencies to examine.
“Nobody has that close access to the supreme leader except his wife,” says Lee.
But will she stay true forever?
Just as behind her compelling looks lies a woman who kills on command and indulges in heinous abuse, perhaps nothing can be taken for granted about Kim Yo-jong.