Daul Kim Dead UPDATE: 20-Year-Old Model Found Hanged In Paris Apartment (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

*Scroll down for videos and photos of Daul Kim*

UPDATE 11/24
Agence France Press confirmed that Kim died by suicide.

UPDATE 11/20:
Details are emerging about how model Daul Kim died, making the probability of a suicide more and more likely. Scroll down for more information and video of Kim.

From AP:

By JEAN-PIERRE VERGES

PARIS - A 20-year-old top South Korean model who was a fashion week regular in New York, Milan and Paris has been found hanged in her Paris apartment, a police official said Friday.

Daul Kim was found dead Thursday by her boyfriend, who alerted French police, the official said. He declined to be named in accordance with policy.

Paris police were working under the hypothesis that Kim committed suicide, he said.

Kim's agent, Alessandra Bertoldini of the Next modeling agency, said the model's mother was arriving in Paris later Friday. She declined to elaborate.

Raised in Seoul and Singapore, Kim modeled in Asia before making her fashion week debut in Paris in 2007, modeling for top brands like Chanel, Dries van Noten and Maison Martin Margiela, among others, her Seoul agency, Esteem, said. She most recently appeared during Seoul fashion week in October.

Known for her thick mane of hair -- sometimes dyed blond -- and her quirky sensibility, the 5-foot-10 (178-centimeter) model was celebrated for her sense of style. She was featured recently in a commercial for designer Christopher Kane's line of clothing for British retailer Topshop.

Kim also was an accomplished painter and video filmmaker who had a solo show of her artwork in Seoul.

Bloggers in South Korea mourned her death, speculating she felt the pressure of high-fashion modeling and a loss of identity.

In an Oct. 30 entry on her blog, Kim wrote she was "mad depressed and overworked," and in another entry said "the more i gain the more lonely it is ... i know i'm like a ghost."

The last entry on her blog, dated Nov. 18, was titled "say hi to forever" and carried a video of the song "I Go Deep" by British singer Jim Rivers.

South Korea -- which has the highest suicide rate among the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- has had a string of high-profile suicides over the past year.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun jumped to his death in May while embroiled in a widening corruption scandal and the ex-chairman of South Korea's oldest conglomerate killed himself earlier this month. In 2008, top actress Choi Jin-sil committed suicide, following in the footsteps of a fellow actor. A young actress in one of South Korea's popular soap operas also died by suicide.

___

Associated Press writers Jean H. Lee, Kwang-tae Kim and Yewon Kang in Seoul contributed to this report.

11/19:
20-year-old model Daul Kim was found dead in her Paris apartment this morning, her agency Next has confirmed. The cause of death remains unknown, but a source told The Cut that she committed suicide.

The agency said in a statement "She was a top model and a great friend to all of us at Next. Please respect her family's privacy at this time of sadness. We will all miss her very much."

The South Korean model kept a blog called I Like To Fork Myself, and yesterday made her last posting under the title "say hi to forever." The post was a song called "I Go Deep" by Jim Rivers, under which she wrote "best track forever."

Kim recorded a video diary for New York magazine during fall Fashion Week in September 2008, in which she revealed that she was reading Tolstoy (which many mistook for "Toy Story") and talked about her qualms with tipping bad waiters.

PHOTOS:

• • In this photo taken on Feb. 2, 2009, South Korean model Daul Kim presents at Swarovski S/S Collection in Seoul, South Korea. The top South Korean model who was a fixture at fashion week in Paris and London was found dead at her apartment in Paris, an official said Friday, Nov. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Han Mi-hee) ** KOREA OUT **

WATCH:

In another installment, Kim filmed her fellow models backstage at the shows.

WATCH:

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Comments

[kdogs]

01:49 PM on 11/23/2009

Eating disorders and drug addiction and dual diagnosis are serious as it gets.
http://www­.soberlivi­ng.com

[JaniceDoe]

04:35 PM on 11/21/2009

She was clinically depressed. Depression is a chemical imbalance. Some depression is treatment resistant, and a seriously depressed person may not have the mental capacity or energy to seek help, or even know if she needs help.

But her pain must have been intolerabl­e in that she found suicide a relief.

[sheoples]

09:27 PM on 12/30/2009

what's sick is the notion that everyone has to be happy all the time and that being depressed is something abnormal. There are instances in life when long depression­s are normal due to circumstan­ces. Who feeds this idea that everyone has to be happy all the time? You can look to Madison avenue for that.

I have no faith in psychology­/psychiatr­y....the DMS is constantly being changed by whims of the pharmaceut­ical companies depending on what drugs they have to peddle or the social norms at the time. It wasn't long ago that being gay was considered a disorder according to the mental health profession and DMS.

sad things happen to everyones life....li­fe is not fair......­..life is tough.....­....life is not a TV show where everyone is happy with problems that resolve themselves at the end of an episode.

depression is part of life. People who think depression long or short form are a disease are the ones who are living in fairytale land.

[shoegazing]

11:24 AM on 11/21/2009

I really like her writing, so refreshing­, honest and insightful­. Her sign of depression in those blog entries was quite obvious though...j­ust never thought it was that seious. RIP, Daul. May you obtain happiness defined by YOU. :(

[royevatom]

10:19 AM on 11/21/2009

It is an indictment of Modern Culture.
But you would never admit that.
Until All around you lays devastated­.
Muscle, bone and skin.
You gleam for one moment in the lights.
Then you are gone.

[cavegal]

06:19 AM on 11/21/2009

I wonder if any other models noticed that she might be depressed? It is so sad to think someone at 20 does not feel there is anything to live for, especially to have a show of her painting at such a young age.

The glamour and glitz of life in front of the paparazzi hides a flip side that is very stressed and filled with judgments. Actors, models and musicians are pushed to their limits for the elusive 15 minutes. To get to the top means constant exposure and with that comes constant judgement from people who have no idea who you are other than the image plastered on that high fashion magazine.

[seattle music]

07:49 PM on 11/20/2009

Anorexia kills.

The human body needs calories, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, carbohydra­tes to function, to make hormones, to maintain homeostasi­s.

Female humans need a certain amount of body fat to menstruate­, to ovulate, to be fertile, sexual beings.

Food is fuel for EVERYTHING our bodies do, including THINK our way through stressful situations­.

[ForeverXL]

05:51 AM on 11/21/2009

she did not have anorexia? say whut!?

[KIVPossum]

08:36 AM on 11/21/2009

I don't know about the things seattle music mentions, but the girl was most definately anorexic.

[davemartin7777]

01:42 PM on 11/20/2009

photo

She was an artist as well as a model.

So sad.

Her very first blog ently:

"2007/04/3­0
daulmonste­r recently

is doing well. too busy traveling
like 3 countries in one week
its overwhelmi­ng and i am
going to smash my face with
this hammer,
so you will probably not
see daul as so often as before.
but you will see daulmonste­r as she lives
inside ur heart forever.

my life as daul was so miserable and lonely.
please join my loneliness in another world.

i love you all.

daul

KIDDING . im fine. just tired."

She wasn't kidding.

Warning signs of depression need to be taken seriously, it's a shame she didn't seek profession­al help, maybe it would have have helped.

[cocolola]

01:50 PM on 11/20/2009

The sad thing about life is that sometimes there is no one there to save us when we're in trouble. And if don't have presence of mind to save ourselves, or seek help, it can mean the end.

[cocolola]

01:37 PM on 11/20/2009

Everything to live for. What a waste.

[sheoples]

09:30 PM on 12/30/2009

until we lived in her shoes....n­o one has the right to take such a cursory conclusion­.

[ItWasntMeReally]

12:41 PM on 11/20/2009

Frankly, she doesn't seem all that interestin­g as a person outside the context of this tragedy. However, that should not be the measure of judging such an event. There are quite a few important lessons in this. Those youngsters who consider modeling a prestigiou­s, glamour profession can now balance their view. It is quite an exploitati­ve profession­. The most poignant point the she makes is ' the more I gain the more lonely I become'. Let that be a lesson to all, society included, for its crazy appetite for glamour and worshippin­g "models" and celebritie­s.

[Makenna Combs]

07:03 PM on 11/20/2009

From your comment you obviously haven't heard much of her before, and I find it disturbing that anyone on here would regard someone as uninterest­ing without knowing them personally at all, and perhaps not knowing OF them for longer than mere minutes.

There are LOTS of people I know personally who are in creative fields such as art and music that end up in a similar fashion - the more you gain in popularity and stance, the less time you get to have a home, friends, and a personal life outside of work. It is a hard thing to help and some people handle it better than others - but I would never tell anyone to shy away from their dreams, even if it turns out to be detrimenta­l for some.

[carnegie]

07:09 PM on 11/21/2009

Uh how dare you judge someone you don't know. And she was only 20 for cryig out loud.

[rr00]

12:20 PM on 11/20/2009

Some people are able to cut through our reality, and to see things how they really are.
Not how they're presented to us from lovers, friends, media, politician­s, spiritual leaders,
employers, and so on. It is a terrible isolation, especially if one is unable to frame it in
such a way to remain engaged in life.

That type of state - and the suffering associated with it - can feel very bleak. It can be wonderful if you're creative and intelligen­t, because it can act as a catalyst for great things. But it's hard to exist there, and it's even more difficult to shut it down and return to the "show" that is our lives.

RIP Daul :(

[vorpalmusic]

01:25 PM on 11/20/2009

Even if you're very creative and intelligen­t it can be too much to handle, perhaps more so, as it is easy to imagine a better world and then find the real world so lacking.

[chendri887]

12:07 PM on 11/20/2009

The cruelty of hyper-Conf­ucianism to blame, at least on some level?

[victorsays]

12:32 PM on 11/20/2009

Great, blame Asian culture for Asian people suicide. How many model and actors committ suicide in the US? Also, South Korea is no longer a confucian society - it has turned itself into a Christian culture. So blame Christinai­ty.

[vorpalmusic]

01:13 PM on 11/20/2009

Here, here. We have no evidence that she was Christian, but I'll go ahead and blame the religion anyway because that appeals to me.

[chendri887]

01:36 PM on 11/20/2009

Victor, I am not trying "blame Asian culture," as you put it. But...isn'­t it fair to say that, just as the Judeo-Chri­stian (and Greco-Roma­n) traditions undergird much, if not all, of western culture, Confuciani­sm, structural­ly, is the philosophy on which much of Korean culture is based? And, I posed my statement as a question, not as a fact. I know little about Ms. Kim. However, I have a few Korean (and Korean-Ame­rican) friends and acquaintan­ces. Some of them are very much into their Christiani­ty. Yet, I still see that their Christiani­ty is filtered through the Confuciani­st values filial piety, face saving, achievemen­t orientatio­n of Confuciani­sm, or a rebellion against it.

[dlvme2]

10:15 AM on 11/20/2009

I am surprised and saddened that many are making this about modeling. That is not what it is about. It is about a young woman that was beautiful and had a lot going for her. She did not just model. She painted, did videos and probably quite a few other things. It is about someone that took her life and is from South Korea which evidently has an extremely high suicide rate - not all are models. Anyone can have problems or be unhappy when everyone else thinks that they have everything going for them. We need to pay attention to what our friends and loved ones say as it gives insight into what is going on with them. She evidently gave quite a few warning signs that she was not happy. It is a shame that no one stepped in to help her. Maybe her story will help someone else. Every life is worth something.

[carnegie]

07:10 PM on 11/21/2009

Like everything thing else it is about a confluence of things.

[tora]

08:59 AM on 11/20/2009

As tragic as this story may be, we cannot assume this was caused by the pressure of being a model. To me it sounds like she was struggling with something a lot deeper than the usual stress/dep­ression. Thus her hectic travel and being far away from her loved ones probably made it worse. Too bad her family was not close by to watch over and see the signs...

[westreal]

08:30 AM on 11/20/2009

That's sad. She's a pretty girl

[barbiegun]

05:01 AM on 11/20/2009

She had a stupid job where she had to go to bed early and wake up early and worry about her appearance­.

It's possible that this 20 year old woman never even had s # x.

[Zm]

07:50 AM on 11/20/2009

Your two posts are odd.

People are different. What's it to you if she does or doesn't go to college or what she does for a living? What's it to you if she's had sex or not? Does the fact that she's receiving attention and modeling being a profession bother you for some deep seated reason?

Oh, right. Everyone should be exactly the same and exhibit no interest in things even remotely playful or not "adult" at 20: in college, caring about sex, drinking, having fun.

[barbiegun]

09:14 AM on 11/20/2009

Suggested reading -
http://www­.amazon.co­m/Passages­-Predictab­le-Crises-­Adult-Life­/dp/034547­922X/ref=sr_1_1?ie­=UTF8&s=bo­oks&qid=12­58726153&s­r=8-1

[dlvme2]

09:44 AM on 11/20/2009

She did not "just" model, but even if she did that does not define who she was as a person. She was also a painter and a video filmaker. Who knows how much schooling she had or was continuing­. She died too young. I would hate to have my life defined by whether or not I had had sex, drank or partied. There are quite a few things in life that are much more important than that. Her job paid well. She got to travel and meet people. Barbiegun - it is fortunate that not all young women's priorities are what yours were. Some love wearing nice clothes, shoes and just looking good for themselves­. Her job was far from stupid.