Lee Chan-won reacts to Einstein's secret life on KBS2's 'Celebrity Soldier's Secret'

KBS2's Celebrity Soldier's Secret trained its cameras on Albert Einstein for episode 63, which aired July 7 at 8:30 PM. The cast did not stay quiet.

Physicist Professor Kim Sang-wook appeared to walk through Einstein's life and what happened after his 1955 death. The biography covers a lot. Einstein dropped out of school and renounced his nationality before graduating university at the bottom of his class after a falling-out with his thesis advisor. He was unemployed for a stretch before landing a civil servant post at a patent office, where he published the theory of relativity.

The money stuff hit different. Einstein turned down a congratulatory gift from his wife's family worth 30 times his annual salary. When an American research institute offered him a high salary, he took only one-third of the standard rate. A memo he handed to a hotel worker in Japan instead of a tip sold at auction after his death for 1.7 billion won. (The man had a complicated relationship with cash.)

His health was another story. A habit of picking cigarette butts off the street led to simultaneous gastric ulcers and jaundice, a 25 kg weight loss, and full-body physical decline.

The episode also covers his first wife Mileva, who developed depression amid conflict with her mother-in-law. Einstein grew distant and was meeting secretly with a spy. Lee Chan-won visibly reacted to the gaslighting of Mileva. Mi-yeon (미연) responded with what the show describes as harsh words of anger.

Lee Chan-won's on-camera line: "Wow, is KBS really broadcasting this?"

After death came the theft. Einstein had left instructions to be cremated and have his ashes scattered at sea. Pathologist Dr. Thomas Harvey removed his brain without family consent instead, divided it into 240 pieces, and kept them for research into genius. Subsequent analysis found structural differences from ordinary brains and details about his nerve cells.