User Profile

There is no official information available about the marital history of the Kim Jong-il, but he is believed to have been officially married once with three mistresses:

* Kim married his first wife, Kim Young-suk, after being forced by his father to marry the daughter of a senior military official - the two have been estranged for some years. Kim has a daughter from this marriage, Kim Sul-song (born 1974).[26]
* Kim's first mistress, Song Hye-rim, was not officially recognized and after years of estrangement she is believed to have died in Moscow in 2003. They had one son, Kim Jong-nam (born 1971) who is Kim Jong-il's eldest son.
* His second mistress, Ko Young-hee, had taken over the role of First Lady until her death - reportedly of cancer - in 2004. Ko and Kim had two sons, Kim Jong-chul, in 1981, and Kim Jong-un (also "Jong Woon" or "Jong Woong"), in 1984.[27]
* Since Ko's death, Kim has been living with Kim Ok, his third mistress, who had served as his personal secretary since the 1980s.[28]

Like his father, Kim has a profound fear of flying, and has always traveled by private armored train for state visits to Russia and China. The BBC reported that Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian emissary who traveled with Kim across Russia by train, told reporters that Kim had live lobsters air-lifted to the train every day which he ate with silver chopsticks - historically used in the Chinese Imperial Palace to detect poison.[29]

Kim is said to be a huge film buff, owning a collection of more than 20,000 video tapes.[30] His reported favorites are the slasher film Friday The 13th, Rambo, the James Bond and Godzilla series, any movie with Elizabeth Taylor, and Hong Kong action movies.[31] He is the author of the book On the Art of the Cinema. In 1978, on the orders of Kim, South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife Choe Eun-hui were kidnapped in order to build a North Korean film industry.[32] In 2006 he was involved in the production of the Juche (self-reliance) based movie Diary of a Girl Student – depicting the life of a girl whose parents are scientists – with a KCNA news report stating that Kim "improved its script and guided its production".[33]

Kim reportedly enjoys basketball. Former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ended her summit with Kim by presenting him with a basketball signed by NBA legend Michael Jordan.[34] Also an apparent golfer, North Korean state media reports that Kim routinely shoots three or four holes-in-one per round.[35] His official biography also claims Kim has composed six operas and enjoys staging elaborate musicals.[36]

Defectors claim that Kim has seventeen different palaces and residences, including a private resort near Mt. Paektu, a seaside lodge in the city of Wonsan, and a palace complex northeast of Pyongyang surrounded with multiple fence lines, bunkers, and anti-aircraft batteries.[37]

Friends (11):

Friend of (9):