Music career



When Leeteuk and his older sister traveled to Myeongdong for a holiday in early 2000, he was recommended by a talent scout to audition for SM Entertainment's Starlight Casting System, an audition that selects artists to sign under their label. After several test recordings and performances, he signed into SM Entertainment and became the company's trainee. That same year, he had his first quick television appearance as an extra in the MBC Korean drama All About Eve and appeared as a brief model for Pepsi in 2002. In 2003, Leeteuk was put into a five-member boy band with future band mate Donghae, but the project quickly dropped. They were then put into the large rotational group Super Junior along with ten other boys. Older than the other trainees, Leeteuk became the leader of the group.[1]

On November 6, 2005, Leeteuk officially debuted on SBS's Popular Songs music program as a member of Super Junior 05, the first generation of Super Junior. The group performed their first single "TWINS (Knock Out)" with an audience of about 500 fans. Leeteuk explained that he uses a stage name due to his desire to have a name with the same effects as Kangta (and to also prevent confusion with veteran actress Park Jung-soo). His stage name denotes to being "special" as he wants to be a special member in the group.



Around March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation, and Leeteuk would still remain as the leader of Super Junior 06. However, plans changed when the company added in a thirteenth member, Kyuhyun, and the company 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 big after they released their first CD single "U" the following summer, which became Super Junior's most successful single in the music charts until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009.

During his career with Super Junior, Leeteuk was put into two subgroups, smaller groups that is branched off of the larger Super Junior group. In February 2007, Leeteuk was placed in the trot-singing Super Junior-T. A year later, Leeteuk became a member of Super Junior-Happy. On April 19, 2007, almost two months after Super Junior-T's release of their first single "Rokuko", Leeteuk became seriously injured in a car accident when returning home after a recording of the radio show Super Junior Kiss the Radio. Along with Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk, Kyuhyun, and two managers also became victims. While Shindong and Eunhyuk suffered minor injuries, Leeteuk and Kyuhyun sustained more serious injuries, which required for the two be kept in the hospital for several more weeks. Leeteuk had glass shards embedded into his back and above his eyes, which required over 170 stitches in removing most of them.[2][3] Leeteuk was discharged from the hospital on April 30, 2007. Due to this injury, Leeteuk's role in Super Junior's first theatrical production, Attack on the Pin-Up Boys (2007) was canceled. However, he was revealed at the end of the film to be playing the role as the panda mascot, which was later confirmed that it was actually Ryeowook who portrayed most of the panda in the film.