Description: In Running Man episode 823, aired in South Korea on October 18, 2026, Kim Jong-kook correctly guessed what men might secretly think when repeatedly asked “Am I pretty?” The joke was that getting the quiz right made him look like a husband in trouble. Here is the sequence and the punchline.
Short answer: Kim Jong-kook guessed a top response to a dating-survey question: a weary “Not this question again.” His castmates immediately treated that correct guess as if it revealed his personal thoughts about his own wife. He looked into the camera to explain that he was only trying to win the game. The better his quiz answer, the worse his imaginary domestic predicament.
The episode and the rules
This happened on the October 18, 2026 edition of SBS’s long-running South Korean variety series Running Man, identified by SBS as episode 823 and scheduled for 6:10 p.m. Korean time. The episode’s Korean title, Hwanseung-ui Jakdaegi, roughly evokes switching allegiances or partners. Guests included Apink’s Park Cho-rong and former Girl’s Day member Yura, while the regular cast made jokes about their colleagues’ romantic histories.
The relevant segment was an “over-immersion survey” game. Contestants tried to predict the most popular answers in a relationship questionnaire described in the advance coverage as involving unmarried adults in their twenties and thirties. The question asked what men think when a girlfriend repeatedly asks whether she is pretty. This was a ranking game within an entertainment programme, not a scientific finding about every man or every relationship.
How one correct answer became a problem
Park Cho-rong first posed the beauty question to comedian Yang Se-chan. He shyly replied that she was pretty, prompting Haha to tease him for sounding genuinely smitten. The room was already primed to interpret every answer as a confession rather than a guess.
Then Kim Jong-kook supplied a version of “Oh, she’s asking again,” correctly identifying the top-ranked response. Instead of simply celebrating the point, the others suggested that he had answered so readily because he knew the feeling personally. There was a convenient extra ingredient: Jong-kook had married in September 2025. A hypothetical question about a girlfriend suddenly sounded like a question about his marriage.
He turned toward the camera and insisted he was merely proposing an answer that might score. Haha escalated the joke by addressing his wife indirectly: perhaps she should never ask him that question now. Jong-kook tried to repair the impression with another, more flattering line. Haha’s response, in effect, was that the damage was already done. The attempted clarification became the next punchline.
Why the exchange works
The comedy depends on three switches. A correct answer is reclassified as an accidental confession. A usually confident performer becomes the anxious man trying to explain himself to someone watching at home. Finally, the more emphatically he denies the implication, the more material Haha has to tease him with.
This is familiar ensemble-variety comedy: colleagues turn an innocent game response into a running bit. It does not establish what Jong-kook actually thinks about his wife, nor does it document an argument between them. His wife’s private response is not part of the verified scene. The joke belongs to the television exchange, not to speculation about her.
Conclusion
Kim Jong-kook did not make a public confession about his marriage. He got a survey question right, and the cast mischievously converted his success into a reason to apologise on camera. He won the answer; Haha won the aftermath.
References (3)
- SBS official episode 823 clip and broadcast date (the linked clip confirms the episode, but depicts a different challenge).
- Star Today, October 18, 2026: post-broadcast account.
- StarNews, October 17, 2026: advance report on the survey game.
Verification note: This account is based on broadcaster information and reporting, not a claim to have watched the full broadcast. Popularity outside South Korea is not assumed.
