Lee Kyung-kyu Shuts Down Health Rumors — Then Threatens to Take Lee Yoon-seok to the Grave

Lee Kyung-kyu appeared on MBC's *How Do You Play?* this week to personally dismiss circulating rumors about his health — and ended the segment by joking he'd drag his loyal sidekick Lee Yoon-seok into the afterlife with him.

Host Yoo Jae-seok opened the subject carefully, noting that viewer comments on Lee Kyung-kyu's recent YouTube golf content had flagged concerns about his speech sounding slurred. Lee Kyung-kyu cut it short: "There's absolutely nothing wrong. I'm perfectly fine." Yoo backed him up, telling the room Lee Kyung-kyu looked great. When Yoo pointed out that Lee Kyung-kyu was keeping his hands in his pockets, Lee Yoon-seok stepped in immediately — "His hands and feet run cold lately, that's why" — drawing laughter from the set.

The episode also surfaced the origin story of the two men's relationship. Lee Kyung-kyu recalled spotting Lee Yoon-seok adrift during an overseas shoot years ago and summoning him out of boredom. "I told him to kneel, and he actually knelt," Lee Kyung-kyu said. "So I told him, 'From now on, I'll be your great mountain.'" Lee Yoon-seok remembered the full initiation: first he was told to lay out a blanket, then told to put it away. "I just did what I was told. I think he liked that — so I knelt and became his loyal subject."

Lee Kyung-kyu then delivered the line that stopped the room: "When I leave this world, even if Yoon-seok is perfectly healthy, I'm taking him with me." A flustered Lee Yoon-seok shot back, "I have young kids — what are you saying. I need to go lie down for a minute."

Lee Kyung-kyu is one of Korean variety television's most powerful senior figures; Lee Yoon-seok has long played his devoted straight-man sidekick, a dynamic the show frames as feudal loyalty.

"royal bodyguard"; used here as a comedic label for Lee Yoon-seok's unconditional loyalty to Lee Kyung-kyu