Biography & History

He was discovered at Starlight Casting System October 2002 where he joined the auditions on a whim with his friends. Even though he was late because of unfamiliar places, he still passed the audition because of his dance. Initially, Heechul was placed in a four-member project group called, "Four Seasons." This group included other members Jaejoong, Yunho, and Kangin. The prospective group never came through though as both Jaejoong and Yunho were chosen to join another all-male singing group, TVXQ, which debuted in December 2003. With two members gone, the idea of Four Seasons dropped. Heechul and Kangin were then placed in Super Junior along with ten other trainees under the same company. This project group managed through well and debuted two years later on November 6, 2005 under the name Super Junior 05, the first generation of Super Junior. The initial plan for this group is that members would be continuously cycled in and then fazed out into other projects.
Other activities of Heechul before his official debut include modeling, acting, and VJing. He made his first appearance on TV starring in the teen drama “Banolim 2”.
On November 6, 2005, Kim Heechul officially debuted as part of Super Junior 05 on SBS “Inkingayo,” performing the group's first single “TWINS (Knock Out)”. The group was supposed to comprise the first generation of Super Junior. In early 2006, SM Entertainment was beginning to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation, Super Junior 06, where Heechul would still be an undergraduate member. However, plans changed. The company decided to add a thirteenth member, Kyuhyun, and declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. The group dropped the suffix “05″ and became officially credited as Super Junior.
The re-polished group hit it big after it released the first CD single “U” the following summer in 2006. "U" became Super Junior’s most successful single in the music charts until the release of “Sorry, Sorry” in March 2009. However, setbacks occurred for the promotions of “U” in the later half of the year when Heechul suffered a major injury from a car accident that occurred on August 10, 2006.
On August 10, 2006, Heechul was involved in a car accident while heading back to Seoul from Mokpo after attending the funeral of fellow Super Junior member Donghae’s father. The tires malfunctioned while his car attempted to switch lanes. Heechul fractured his left leg in five places, including his femur, knee, and ankle, requiring him to be in surgery for six hours. He also sustained other injuries, including a tear in his tongue which required stitches.
Heechul was advised to stop all activities for a period of twelve weeks. He was released from the hospital on September 13, 2006 but he continued to receive out-patient care. He returned to the hospital to have a second surgery to remove some of the iron rods in his leg on October 10 and briefly returned to work in late October to film the final three episodes of an MBC youth sitcom while still in a cast and on a wheelchair. He made his comeback on November 25 of the same year during the Mnet KM Music Festival (MKMF) Awards but it was only in late December that Heechul officially returned to individual activities such as variety show appearances and hosting appearances.
In 2007, Heechul started to perform regularly despite still having a few rods that the doctors had attached to his leg. In late April and May 2007, he had recovered enough to be able to take part in Super Junior's strenuous dance routines. The remaining rods in his leg were removed in 2008.
Heechul is well-known to fans as a netizen due to the large amount of time he spends on the internet. He was even called out on the fact by fellow group member Eunhyuk on the 17/09/09 episode of SBS Intimate Note, who jokingly asked him whether his occupation was a netizen or a music artist, because he spent more time managing his webpage than actually singing.
Most recently, Heechul has been very active on Twitter. On October 9, he created a personal Facebook, which collected 5,000 friend requests within 5 minutes. He was also a worldwide trending topic on Twitter for four days (from 9 Oct 2010 to 12 Oct 2010).