There were times when the leader of North Korea was scared of talking to young women and did his best to avoid any contact with them, according to reminiscences of a former classmate, cited in Anna Fifield’s bombshell biography, The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong-un.
The 2019 book, excerpts of which have recently been doing the rounds in the media, claims that “at a time when teenagers are usually pushing boundaries, Kim Jong-un was no party animal or playboy in training”.
“He didn’t go to school camp, parties, or discos, and he didn’t touch a drop of alcohol,” Fifield writes.
According to the author, one woman who claims she studied with North Korea’s leader back in Switzerland, recalls that she had never had any substantial conversation with him as he had “absolutely avoided contact with girls".
“He was a loner and didn’t share anything about his private life”, the ex-classmate was quoted as saying.
Reports suggest that Kim spent his childhood in Switzerland where he had attended International School of Berne and later Schule Liebefeld Steinholzli some time between 1993 and 2000. He then allegedly moved to North Korea to study in Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung University.
Fifield claims in her book, citing the future leader’s classmates back in Switzerland, that he was not too good at studies either.
“His test scores were never great, but Kim Jong-un went on to pass the seventh and eighth grades and was there for a part of the ninth grade at the high school, Koniz education authorities confirmed.”
Very few things can be said with certainty about the life of the highly secretive Chairman of the Worker’s Party of Korea, but it is generally believed that his “woman situation” significantly improved with time, as he eventually got married. Kim and his wife Ri Sol-ju reportedly have three children together, South Korean intelligence suggests – although these reports have never been officially confirmed by the North Korea’s first couple.