Over its past few seasons, Netflix’s Korean reality show Single’s Inferno has recruited some cast members who were already famous before arriving in Inferno. (Shout out to season 3’s Kwanhee.) Among the Single’s Inferno season 4 cast members with surprising pasts, including former UDT soldier Yuk Jun-seo and K-drama actor Theo Jang, model Lee Si-an stands out as a former aspiring K-pop star.
Before Single’s Inferno season 4, Lee made her TV debut as a contestant on some of the most popular idol competition shows in history. Now that she’s reemerged, tons of K-pop fans who rooted for her in the past are now hoping she finds the “whirlwind romance” she’s looking for. Below, read on to learn more about Lee Si-an and her K-pop trainee past.
Lee Si-an is a model who used to train as a K-pop singer.
Lee Si-an, 25, is a freelance model under the agency Leaders Entertainment, who has appeared in ads for brands including Samsung Galaxy, FILA, New Balance, and CORSX according to her bio. Per her Single’s Inferno intro, she often works with athleisure brands.
Before beginning her modeling career, Si-an trained as a K-pop idol and even competed on idol survival shows. She was also a competitive swimmer until sixth grade, and she now swims as a hobby.
She competed on the survival shows ‘Idol School’ and ‘Produce 48’.
Though Single’s Inferno can at times be fierce, Lee Si-an has already survived the notoriously harsh world of K-pop survival shows. In 2017, she competed on the Mnet series Idol School and came in 16th place in the finale, missing out on one of the top nine spots to join the girl group Fromis_9.
One year later, she joined the popular Mnet series Produce 48 and placed 30th, leaving the competition on episode 11. The 12 winners went on to form the temporary girl group IZ*ONE, which included another eventual Netflix star, Squid Game‘s Jo Yu-ri.
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Though she was linked to a pre-debut girl group known as HappyFace Girls for two years, Si-an appears to have focused on modeling since the group dissolved in 2021. She still maintains some friendships from her trainee days; last year, she was seen hanging out with LE SSERAFIM‘s Huh Yunjin, former After School member Lee Gaeun, and Kiss of Life creative director Lee Hae-in.