KARA’s charismatic leader, Gyuri, recently shed tears while talking about memories of her grandma.

She appeared on May 24th’s broadcast of SBS’s “Strong Heart” and shared her story about how she couldn’t be at her grandmother’s side when she passed away.

The idol stated, “When I was little, my grandma was very scary. I found out later that she was like that because she was worried about her granddaughter that debuted at an early age. She loved seeing me on TV, but in 2010, right before our Japanese debut, she was hospitalized. I only talked to her on the phone and asked how she was doing, and she was just worrying about me and said that she was fine. I couldn’t even see her because of our Japanese debut preparations.”

She added, “Even after completing our showcase, we were still busy in Korea. I found out later that my grandma passed away on the day of our showcase. My parents purposely didn’t tell me. They didn’t tell me because they thought I would be affected and wouldn’t perform well and ruin our Japanese debut.”

Gyuri shed tears while saying, “I feel so much guilt for not having gone to see her, and I would’ve been so much comfortable if I went and saw her before we went to Japan. I was very pained when I thought about how much she missed me. I don’t really talk about myself and I didn’t even talk about this anywhere else.”

Group mate Hara said, “I know about this now but I didn’t know about it at the time. I found out about it much later.”

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