Spoilers for Single's Inferno season 5 episodes 1-7 ahead. Every year on Single's Inferno, there's one contestant that viewers cannot stop talking about. The buzziest alumni of the Korean reality show—from Song Jia to Lee Gwan-hee to Lee Si-an—are the ones who explore several flirtations and spend more nights in Paradise than the deserted Inferno. How they spend their time on the dating reality show—and who they eventually choose—drives most of the discourse among the show's fans. Among the Single's Inferno season 5 cast, no one fits this role better than former pageant queen Mina Sue Choi.
Even before she arrived on Inferno, the 26-year-old communications student and former Miss Earth drew buzz as one of season 5's already-famous cast members. She quickly became a divisive figure among viewers, with countless fans both calling out and defending her time on the show. Read on for everything you need to know about Mina Sue Choi, from her pre-Single's Inferno entertainment career to her roster of love interests on the reality hit.
Mina Sue Choi is a world traveler studying communications in the U.S.
Mina Sue Choi, 26, was born in Sydney, Australia, and grew up across several countries, including South Korea, the U.S., Canada, and China. According to her Single's Inferno intro, she attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in communications.
She also interned with a Korean beauty startup around the time of season 5 started filming, using her fluency in English to work with international buyers.
Mina Sue Choi was the first-ever South Korean winner of the Miss Earth pageant.
In November 2022, Choi won the 2022 Miss Earth competition, a Philippines-based pageant that highlights environmental awareness, conservation, and social responsibility. With the win, she became the first South Korean winner of a Big Four pageant. (The other three are Miss World, Miss Universe, and Miss International.)
At the time, Choi was praised for her answer to the final question: "What is one thing you would want to correct in this world and how would you correct it?"
"We often mistake kindness as being empathetic, but what being empathetic [means] is really putting yourself in someone else’s shoes," she answered. "And when it comes to climate issues and other issues in this world, one has to be empathic."
Single's Inferno has a long history of recruiting pageant queens. Following season 5's premiere, fans found footage of Mina Sue appearing at a Miss Korea pageant alongside season 2's Seoeun Choi and season 3's Cho Min-ji. Of the season 5 cast, Mina Sue was the runner-up for Miss Korea 2021, Kim Go-eun was the second runner-up in 2022, and Park Hee-sun was the first runner-up in 2024.
She appeared on several K-dramas and Korean variety shows before 'Single's Inferno.'
After her Miss Earth win, Choi began a career as a TV personality. In 2022, she became a contestant on the survival game show Battle for Tenancy: Penthouse. She came in seventh place in the social-strategy game, where the contestants competed for up to 400 million won.
Since then, Choi has appeared in small guest roles on several K-dramas, including the rom-com DNA Lover. Notably, her appearance alongside Lee Jong-suk in the Viki K-drama Law in the City has gone viral during Single's Inferno's run. In the clip, after Choi and Lee's characters part ways after a blind date, Lee immediately deletes her contact from his phone.
Her flirtatious behavior on 'Single's Inferno' season 5 has fans split.
From the moment she walked onto the beach in her viral yellow dress, Mina Sue Choi became one of the most popular women on Inferno. Several of the men quickly expressed interest in her, including fellow English speaker Lee Sung-hun (a.k.a. Samuel Lee), former baseball player/model Lim Su-been, and fashion marketer Song Seung-il. Though Mina Sue gave her first-impression rose to Seung-il, she became interested in Su-been after they won the couple dodgeball game together. She then chose Su-been to take to Paradise.
Things started getting messy with Mina Sue in episode 4, when she was chosen last for a couple-photoshoot challenge. Both Su-been and Seung-il were already chosen (by Park Hee-sun and Kim Min-gee, respectively) by her turn, so her mind was blank about who to pick. She eventually went with Sung-hun and Woo Sung-min, and sparks seemed to fly between them. During Truth or Dare that night, Mina Sue gave a secret heart to Sung-hun, told Sung-min she wanted to go to Paradise with him, chose Seung-il as her top pick, and was jealous of Su-been getting close to Hee-sun.
Of course, this is a dating show, and playing the field is encouraged. But the host panel pointed out the hypocrisy of Mina Sue telling Su-been that she doesn't like him flirting with other people in front of her when she'd been getting to know other guys. They decided to get to know other people and see how they feel at the end of Inferno, but Mina Sue continued to get upset when she saw him with Hee-sun.
Throughout episodes 5-7, her constantly-changing feelings seemed to confuse the host panel and cast members, especially Min-gee and Sung-hun. Sung-hun and Mina Sue were quick friends since they both were more comfortable speaking in English, but it's unclear whether they would make it out of the friend zone. Meanwhile, Mina Sue and Min-gee were both interested in Seung-il, and each made the other nervous.
Episode 7 ended with Mina Sue about to choose someone for a Paradise date, but with so many men on her mind—notably Su-been, Seung-il, and Sung-hun—it's anyone's guess who she'll choose on February 3.
