My playmate the monster: A tyrant in the nursery. Vodka binges at 14, Big Macs and a brigade of ‘pleasure’ girls. The man who saw Kim Jong-Un from rock-star boyhood to blood-soaked dictatorship tells his story

Kenji Fujimoto was Kim Jong-Il's chef and his son's 'companion'

He spent over a decade with Jong-Un before escaping North Korea

Reveals everything from dictator's favourite food to his smoking habit



Starved, humiliated, subject to almost unimaginable tortures, there can be few more miserably terrified populations than those condemned to live in North Korea.

According to the United Nations, the human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime are reminiscent of the Nazis, with a report detailing eyewitness accounts of mothers forced to kill their own babies and whole families condemned to labour camps – and almost certain death – for the most trivial slights against authority. The rest of us have good reason to be fearful, too.

The despot Kim Jong Un appears to harbour the delusional fantasies of a James Bond villain.



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Reunited: Kenji Fujimoto,who spent more than a decade as Kim Jong Un's companion, with the dictator in North Korea in 2012

With his finger said to be permanently twitching on the button of a nuclear arsenal, there are good reasons for describing him as the greatest threat to human life on the planet.

Yet for all his anti-Western rhetoric, an equally bizarre portrait of the dictator has now emerged – from the man who spent the best part of a decade employed as his professional playmate.

According to his former companion Kenji Fujimoto, Jong Un is really a Hollywood-obsessed playboy who grew up with the lavish excesses of a rock-star childhood.

And today, in the most detailed account ever given about the secretive tyrant, Fujimoto recalls a child who learned to drive his own Mercedes at the age of seven, whose favourite games were Super Mario and Tetris, who downed whole bottles of vodka and smoked like a chimney – but who, chillingly, from his earliest days, displayed the ruthless determination apparent in the recent execution of his own uncle.

Fujimoto, 66, spent more than a decade as head chef and confidant of Un’s father and the country’s late dictator Jong Il before escaping North Korea in 2001. But he had another job, too – acting as companion to Jong Un, the late dictator’s youngest son.

Like old times: Kenji Fujimoto pours wine for Kim Jong Un during their reunion in 2012, burgundy red is not the North Korean dictator's favorite, although he used to down bottles of vodka from his early teens

‘In the palace, I had two jobs really. For Kim Jong Il, I was his main sushi chef. For Kim Jong Un, I was there to play with him, almost like a nanny,’ says Fujimoto.

‘I would say I was the closest person to him when he was young. I felt like he was my own son.’

From the age of six, Jong Un spent hours of every day with the chef.

They played and ate together and even slept on the same bed, apart from the times when Fujimoto was sent abroad to purchase exotic food: fish from Tokyo, Big Macs from Peking.

Millions of North Koreans were dying during two decades of famine yet the ruling family’s private palace was like something from the movies.

‘It was incredible, with an enormous chandelier and all-cream furnishings,’ Fujimoto says.

‘It had an Olympic-size pool, movie theatre and huge gym. The kids’ playroom was big, with remote-controlled cars everywhere and a billiard table.

‘Jong Un learned to drive when he was seven. They put a little box beneath his feet to help him reach the pedals and someone gave him instruction. The first car he got was a Mercedes-Benz, and he has owned Mercedes ever since. I’d say he has more than ten now – all bulletproof.’

The chosen one: Kim Jong-Un at the age of ten

Sheltered from other children, Jong Un was almost inseparable from his older brother, Jong Chul.

The pair would do musical performances on their birthdays, with Jong Un singing the alphabet in front of everyone while his brother played the electric guitar.

Jong Un was virtually unknown outside North Korea until his appointment as leader in 2011. But according to Fujimoto, he was singled out as the future heir from early childhood by his father, who dismissed Jong Chul as ‘effeminate’.

Another son, Kim Jong Nam, the eldest of Jong Il’s three boys, reportedly fell out of favour with the family in 2001 when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport to visit Tokyo’s Disney resort.

‘Jong Un was always very grown-up and hated being treated like a child,’ Fujimoto continues. ‘Even when he was just nine years old, his aunt would call him “little general” and he said, “What? Am I a kindergarten kid now?’’ and got really angry.

‘Among his peers, he was always the leader. He’d always speak his mind and it was he who always got to make decisions. His big brother would always just follow.’

Fujimoto also recalls the brothers fighting viciously, as Jong Un’s now famously brutal temper would bubble to the surface, even at the age of 11.

He says: ‘I remember one time Jong Un was playing a board game with his cousin, where the person that took the most pieces wins. Jong Chul was standing over them, watching. When Jong Un was just about to move a piece, Jong Chul said, “Not that one, this one.” Jong Un did what his big brother told him to but ended up losing the piece.

‘Jong Un was furious. He picked up that piece and just stared right at his big brother.

‘Then he threw the piece right at him. I still remember the look on Jong Un’s face.’

Fujimoto continues: ‘The general would always say his older son, Jong Chul, was “no good, he acts like a girl – my youngest son, Jong Un, is more like me”.’

Father and son shared a love of James Bond and Clint Eastwood films. Fujimoto recalls how halfway through the Eastwood thriller In The Line Of Fire, Jong Il suddenly jumped to his feet, pointing at the American officers on the screen.

School days: Kim Jong Un (circled) is pictured with friends during his time at school in Switzerland

‘This is how you protect me,’ he shouted at the bodyguards who surrounded them at all times. ‘You have to protect me as the secret police in the movie do.’

Jong Un’s appetite for basketball was insatiable from a young age. It is said that even now he never misses an NBA game.

‘There was a hoop for children at a park at the Wonsan guesthouse [in reality a palace]. Kim Jong Il was 5ft 2in so I think he put the basketball hoop there hoping his kids would grow up taller.’

American stars Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman — now a well-publicised friend — were particular idols. Jong Un would insist on playing basketball every evening right after dinner. And it was on the basketball court that he developed his steely temperament.

‘He was hard on his team-mates. Jong Chul would always say, “Good job everyone, have a good rest” and let his team-mates go home,’ says Fujimoto. ‘But Jong Un was always telling people off.’

As time went on, the teenage Jong Un adopted a playboy lifestyle, fooling around with a customised jetski, lounging on the two yachts given to him by his father and, at the age of 14, taking up smoking.

He often turned up at Fujimoto’s door at 3am, begging for cigarettes. ‘In almost all things he was obedient to his parents but he kept this a secret from them,’ he says.

‘He’d ask me to wait downstairs for him, he’d come in his Mercedes and we’d go up a little hill and smoke at the car park there. One, maybe two cigarettes. Yves Saint Laurent was his favourite brand. Kim Jong Un drank a lot, too, even as a young teenager – Russia’s finest vodka. Sometimes he’d drink the whole bottle all by himself. Though now he prefers Bordeaux red wine – which was Kim Jong Il’s favourite’.

It is this soft Western living that accounts for Jong Un’s swelling girth, now accommodated by expensive tailoring. Fujimoto says he favours suits made by Scabal on Savile Row, which start at £1,500.

Upon his return to North Korea at the age of 18, Jong-Un, pictured with wife Ri Sol-Ju, was encouraged to spend time with his father's 'pleasure brigade' but according to Fujimoto he 'loathed' the idea and led to Fujimoto questioning whether he even liked girls

At 15, Jong Un was sent to a private and costly international college near Berne in Switzerland, and later to the nearby Liebefeld-Steinholzi state school. Living under the pseudonym Un Pak, Jong Un has been described by classmates as a student with little academic prowess, who spent most of his time on the school basketball courts and the ski slopes.

Perhaps this is why he has now ordered the construction of Masik Pass – a multi-million-pound ski resort, the first of its kind in North Korea: a country with an estimated mere 5,000 skiers out of a population of 24 million.

Jong Un arrived back in North Korea at 18 without qualifications and was sent to the Kim Il-sung Military University in Pyongyang.

It was around this time that Jong Un found himself exposed to his father’s ‘pleasure brigade’ – teams of beautiful teenage girls forced to sing, strip naked and perform massages and sexual favours.

But unlike his sex-mad father, Fujimoto says, Jong Un was shy with girls and ‘loathes having relationships with multiple women’.

He adds: ‘He never had a girlfriend. His father thought perhaps he wasn’t even interested in girls. But when he was around 18, there was this one dancer in the palace and Jong Un came to me and said, “That girl has really big breasts.” And so I thought, ah he is interested in girls. Now he has a very beautiful wife, Ri Sol-ju.’

Fujimoto speculates that this hatred of his father’s womanising is what led Jong Un to execute his uncle. Jang Song Thaek, he says, picked the pleasure-brigade girls, most of whom were orphans or kidnap victims. The uncle’s role was to select the girls by stripping them naked and lifting their legs to ‘inspect their virginity’.

It was in 2001 that Fujimoto made his escape from North Korea to Japan, under the guise of buying sea urchins for the kitchens, despite the fact that he had a wife and child living in Pyongyang, and still does.

He claims his family has come to no harm despite his ‘defection’ and subsequent willingness to talk to the Japanese authorities.

Fujimoto says that, at the time, he had no idea about the true nature of the regime.

His departure was viewed as a betrayal by Jong Il, who sent assassins to Japan. To this day, the chef refuses to disclose his real name.

Superfan: Kim Jong-Un has been obsessed with basketball from an early age and has now made friends with his idol, former NBA star Dennis Rodman

There was a further surprise to come. When, in 2012, he found a North Korean agent on his doorstep, he was expecting a death threat, or even a hit.

Instead it was a request from Jong Un, now supreme leader: Would he return to North Korea to see his former playmate? He took the risk and said yes.

Fujimoto says now: ‘As I walked into that giant palace hall, I was terrified. I had betrayed Kim Jong Un by leaving North Korea, so he could have had me killed. But as I entered, Jong Un just smiled and said, “Long time no see, Fujimoto-san. Your betrayal of North Korea has been all forgiven,” and hugged me.

‘I cried most of the way through the meal because I was so overwhelmed at what a generous man Jong Un had become. We ate shark-fin soup, steak, all sorts. Shark-fin is definitely Jong Un’s favourite food. He’s had it at least three times a week since he was a child.

‘He kept telling me how we used to have so much fun and thanked me for playing with him when he was small. We ended up talking about how things used to be. Then he challenged me to a drinking contest.

‘I remember him saying, “Mr Fujimoto, I want to plan another party for you. Let’s drink Japanese sake next.” He’s a busy man, we never got to do that party.’

Following his extraordinary visit, Fujimoto has concluded that Jong Un’s friendship with sporting superstar Dennis Rodman, a regular visitor to North Korea, has a diplomatic purpose. ‘I think he wants to raise his profile in America. It’s definitely not just about the basketball.’

But Fujimoto admits December’s execution of Jong Un’s uncle has left him more scared than before.

He claims that Jang Song Thaek was killed because of his role as a procurer of a ‘pleasure brigade’ of young girls for his father – something the new leader is said to abhor. And, even though he saw his wife and child on that brief visit two years ago, there is no prospect of a return.

‘Even if the Japanese government was to pile 100 million yen in front of me to go back to North Korea, it would just be too difficult for me to go back now.

‘Jong Un might take back what he said about forgetting my betrayal and do what he did to Jang Song Thaek,’ he says. ‘Make me disappear, as if I never existed.’