Who Is Park Hae-lin, the Outgoing Game Changer from 'Single's Inferno' Season 4?
The rising actress arrived on the Netflix reality show midway through the season and is already one-to-watch.
Most reality TV fans are familiar with the game changer: a contestant who arrives partway through the season to shake up the competition. In season 4 of Single's Inferno, Netflix's hit Korean dating show, Park Hae-lin, with her bubbly, outgoing personality quickly, changes the Inferno's mood. Fans are now curious about the newcomer, especially as her interest in two of the men is guaranteed to put her at odds with the other singles looking for love.
Like fellow season 4 standouts Yuk Jun-seo and Lee Si-an, Hae-lin already had a background in the Korean entertainment industry before her Netflix debut. Below, read on for everything we know about the new addition to Single's Inferno's season 4 cast, Park Hae-lin.
Park Hae-lin is a college student studying acting.
Park Hae-lin, 24, is a college student studying film arts at Sejong University in Seoul. She specializes in acting and, i n her Single's Inferno intro, Hae-lin says she enjoys learning about classic literature and unique characters from the different texts.
According to her Instagram bio, she is signed to the entertainment agency WNY, which also manages actresses Oh Yoo-jin, Han Ji-min, and Lee Soo-jung.
She made her K-drama debut last year.
In 2024, Hae-lin made her acting debut in the K-drama Tarot, in which she played a snack bar owner named Mingu. The Korean thriller about cursed tarot cards (unrelated to the U.S. horror movie) held a Single's Inferno connection, as it also served as host Dex's scripted TV debut.
In December 2024, she also appeared in the romance K-drama When the Silver Bell Rings, which followed the love stories of four seniors. She played the younger version of one of the main characters, Soo-hyang (played as an older woman by Ye Soo-jung).
She's a former K-pop trainee who competed on a survival show.
Hae-lin is another member of the season 4 cast who dreamed of being a K-pop idol before entering her current career. Over her time as a trainee, Hae-lin trained under the agencies JYP Entertainment, PlayM Entertainment, and MNH Entertainment. She also competed on the 2017 survival show MIXNINE, where she was eliminated in the 10th episode and ranked at 35th out of 98 female trainees.
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Like Lee Si-an, Hae-lin came quite close to debuting. Under PlayM Entertainment, she was named as a member of FAVE GIRLS, the pre-debut girl group that would eventually become Weeekly. Hae-lin left the company in July 2019 to pursue her studies. During a February 2020 appearance on the variety show I Can See Your Voice, she confirmed that she was no longer interested in becoming an idol.
Quinci LeGardye is a Culture Writer at Marie Claire. She currently lives in her hometown of Los Angeles after periods living in NYC and Albuquerque, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in English and Psychology from The University of New Mexico. In 2021, she joined Marie Claire as a contributor, becoming a full-time writer for the brand in 2024. She contributes day-to-day-content covering television, movies, books, and pop culture in general. She has also written features, profiles, recaps, personal essays, and cultural criticism for outlets including Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, Vulture, The A.V. Club, Catapult, and others. When she isn't writing or checking Twitter way too often, you can find her watching the latest K-drama, or giving a concert performance in her car.