Single's Inferno host Hong Jin Kyung denies rumours daughter, 16, had plastic surgery

Hong Jin Kyung, a South Korean model-turned-broadcaster best known for hosting reality dating show Single's Inferno, has refuted rumours that her teenage daughter underwent plastic surgery.

Kim Rael, aged 16, previously appeared on Hong's YouTube channel as an elementary school student.

After she posted photos of herself, now in high school, on her social media accounts, netizens remarked on her "completely changed" appearance.

Her slimmer face and heavy makeup sparked rumours that she had undergone plastic surgery, reported Chosun Biz.

Editing, not surgery: Mother

But her mother denied these rumours and explained in a social media post on Feb. 8 that it was "all editing".

"Rael, isn't this basically fraud?" she quipped in a post, in which she shared photos of Rael before and after photo editing.

She added that her daughter had used an app to "make herself look like a Chinese beauty".

On why she was clarifying the matter on social media, Hong said that it was a "serious" affair.

"I've become a mother who shaved down her underage daughter's jaw... I'm freaking out because of her!" she wrote.

In a subsequent post, she shared screenshots of her conversation with her daughter, with the teen's consent, in which Rael explained that she had been "protecting her mental state".

Hong countered that she should "just accept [her] bare face and live as [herself]".

"So what if you have a slightly square jaw, so what if you have a bit of cheek fat. That's Kim Rael."

Top image from Hong Jin Kyung/Instagram