©picture alliance / YONHAPNEWS AGENCY | Yonhap
Perhaps the biggest secret surrounding North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is his mother. During his fifteen years in power, he has never publicly mentioned her by name. That is certainly no coincidence. After all, her background clashes head-on with the narrative cherished by Pyongyang of the sacred “Paektu bloodline,” the dynastic myth upon which the regime’s legitimacy rests.
According to various sources, Kim’s mother, Ko Yong-hui, was born in Osaka, Japan, to ethnically Korean parents from Jeju. Her family belonged to the Zainichi Koreans, a community that remained in Japan during the Japanese colonial period and was often regarded in North Korea as suspicious or “tainted.” In the North Korean class system, songbun, people with such a background rank lower and have fewer opportunities for education or a good job.
That makes her background politically charged. After all, the official state narrative openly presents the Kim dynasty as an almost mythical lineage tracing back to Mount Paektu and to the founder of Korea. Experts emphasize that a leader with a mother from Japan would undermine that image and, moreover, raise questions about the purity upon which the line of succession is built.
Ko Yong-hui came to North Korea as a ten-year-old girl through a repatriation program that lured thousands of Korean families from Japan with promises of free education, healthcare, and work. She later worked as a dancer with the Mansudae Art Troupe, which caught the attention of Kim Jong-il. According to what is publicly known, they had three children together: Kim Jong-chul, Kim Jong-un, and Kim Yo-jong. Because the relationship was never officially recognized, Ko lived largely out of the public eye.
After Kim Jong-il’s death in 2011, Kim Jong-un succeeded him. Analysts believe that since then, the family has been even more careful to remain silent about Ko Yong-hui, for fear that her background might undermine the young leader’s legitimacy. Even her death from breast cancer in Paris in 2004 was kept quiet in North Korea.
©picture alliance / YONHAPNEWS AGENCY | Yonhap - Illustrative image: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju wave goodbye to Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan at Pyongyang International Airport on June 9, 2026. Xi returned home after a two-day visit to North Korea.