Rain listed in People’s 100 Most Beautiful
Rain (Real name: Jung Ji-Hoon, born on 25 June 1982 in Seoul) is a male Korean R&B and pop singer. He has become well-known throughout East and Southeast Asia — including Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Mainland China, Vietnam and Thailand.
South Korean pop star Rain, a pan-Asian heartthrob, has become the first entertainer from his country to make People magazine’s annual “100 Most Beautiful People” list.
“I am very honoured. This will be a great boon to my efforts to raise public awareness of me in the United States,” Rain was quoted as saying on his agent’s website.
“I never expected this to happen to me. This is the best news for me this year.”
Since his debut in 2002 Rain, whose real name is Jung Ji-Hoon, has personified the “Korean Wave” of pop music, films and TV dramas sweeping across Asia.
In 2007, Rain topped Time Magazine’s online user poll, although he was not in the magazine’s actual list. He also made it into People’s 2007 list of the “Most Beautiful People” in the world.
Rain became interested in R&B and Hiphop dancing when he was in 6th grade. As a teenager, he was a member of a boy band called Fanclub. The group was short-lived, and soon disbanded. At that time Rain was having the hardest time of his life. His mother was sick, he had no money, he had a little sister to take care of and go to school. Yet he still pressed forward, always dancing, dreaming to become a singer. Rain then began auditioning for various talent agencies. In a CNN interview, however, he recalled being repeatedly rejected because of his looks: “In fact, I was told after one audition that my singing and dancing was great but I didn’t make it because I didn’t have double eyelids.”Finally, Rain entered an audition for Korean talent agency JYP Entertainment. Park Jin Young, the CEO of the agency, took a personal interest in Rain and accepted him as a trainee. During the early years of training, Rain was a backup dancer.
Finally, in 2002 he debuted with the album Bad Guy where he was introduced to the media through his stage or commercial name, Rain. In the album, a similarly-named single Bad Guy was a big hit. After his first album, he took time off from his career as a singer to star in the drama series, Sang Doo! Let’s Go To School. Following the success of his debut as singer and actor, Rain released his second album How to Avoid The Sun, and had another hit with the title song “Ways to Avoid the Sun.”
In 2004, he starred in another successful drama called “Full House“, which was one of the highest-rated Korean dramas of all time with ratings of over 30% for every episode.It was broadcasted in many other countries including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. Through Full House, Rain was recognized across Asia. His performance in the drama also won him the Best Actor Award at the KBS Acting Awards.
