A Canadian actor died on April 23 in South Korea due to complications of 12 cosmetic surgeries he underwent to look like K-pop group BTS member Jimin.
Actor Saint Von Colucci spent $220,000 for 12 plastic surgery procedures “so he could play BTS's KPOP star Jimin for a US streaming network,” the Daily Mail reported on April 24.
Saint Von Colucci (left) and BTS' Jimin (Photos from Daily Mail, Big Hit Music)
He died in a hospital in South Korea. According to his publicist Eric Blaker, the actor underwent surgery on April 22 “to remove implants from his jaw that he had put in in November.”
Saint Von Colucci “developed an infection from the implants, and due to complications he had been intubated and died hours later,” the report added.
“It’s very tragic and very unfortunate,” said Blake.
In the last year, Saint Von Colucci underwent “jaw surgery, implants, a face lift, a nose job, eye lift, an eyebrow lift, a lip reduction and some other minor surgeries.”
“He was very insecure about his looks. H had a very square jawline and chin and he didn't like the shape of it because he thought it was too wide an wanted a V-shape, the shape many Asians have,” said Blake.
The report added that Saint Von Colucci started filming the Korean drama “Pretty Lies” in June last year and completed it last December where he played an international student. The drama was set to air on a major US OTT platform in October.
“He was very very excited and worked really hard,” added Blake.
The publicist said Colucci went to South Korea in 2019 hoping to enter the music industry. An agency paid for his housing, transportation and living expenses.
Blake said Saint Von Colucci was unhappy with his appearance.
“'He was very insecure about his face. It was very hard from him to get a job in South Korea and he felt very discriminated against his Western looks,” he said.
A press release issued by a company named IBG in January 2022 through EIN Presswire stated that Saint Von Colucci was to make his K-pop debut in the summer with his first mini-album "T1K T0K H1GH SCH00L".
The album reportedly had three songs written by the artist himself: "Pretty Lies" (거짓말) , "0PP4" and "I DON`T BLEED.”
It said Saint Von Colucci, who was identified as 23 years old in the press release, was born in Quebec, Canada, and moved to South Korea to become a trainee in an agency.
“He started working in the entertainment industry as early as 2015, making his debut as an actor and commercial model in Canada. Due to his parents` jobs, he ended up living in many different countries, such as Brazil, Portugal, Spain, England, resulting in him becoming fluent in five languages, those being English, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Korean,” the press release stated.