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Big Brother 4 winner Jun Song faced the ‘worst nightmare’ of her life after her son, Noah, “fell incredibly ill” in October. And the reality competition show’s community showed up in a big way for Jun’s GoFundMe fundraiser.
Jun, who won the $500,000 grand prize in 2003, is active on Instagram and X, regularly sharing selfies of herself with Noah and her Big Brother hot takes. But, the 48-year-old content strategist was noticeably absent from her regular Big Brother 25 commentary for nearly a month before popping back up on X on November 16 to reveal she was going through a family crisis.
Noah, 11, was admitted into a children’s ICU after developing “mycoplasma pneumonia that evolved into bacterial meningitis when the mycoplasma traveled to his brain,” Jun shared in the GoFundMe campaign. Jun wrote that it had taken 11 days for Noah to regain his consciousness to a state where “he could function somewhat normally, to go to the bathroom on his own two feet, eat solid food, and even crack a joke.”
“This is stuff you hear about happening to someone else, or seeing on some television program in the comfort of your own living room,” Jun wrote. “It’s not something I ever expected, and seeing my Noah lose consciousness and lay there in the children’s ICU was some of the slowest hours of my life I ever lived through. Not knowing when he’d wake up, or if he’d wake up at all, and not knowing if he’d wake up with brain damage. I told myself in my head, to prepare for it all. But in my heart, there was only dull dreadful pain.”
Jun launched the fundraiser and asked the public to help her with the financial burden of Noah’s medical emergency. And within two days, Jun hit her monetary goal. With over 300 donations, Jun raised €10,423 (around $11,380) and the fundraiser was paused.
“I’ve been crying on and off today because of the generosity in your support and kindness of your sentiments,” she wrote on X on November 17. “I’m usually such a loudmouth. But today I’m speechless and humbled. Today also happens to be #WorldPrematurityDay. Noah was born 6.5 weeks early. He’s a fighter.”
Noah is now back with Jun at their home in Ghent, Belgium, and on November 18, she gave an update on her 11-year-old, writing that they’ve been logging how Noah feels to share with a neurologist weekly — mostly to track the side effects from the medication he was prescribed. “It’s hard to watch how he’s affected physically and emotionally,” Jun wrote. “But we just take things day by day.”
Jun played Big Brother as a 26-year-old investment manager and after 82 days inside season 4’s house, she beat Alison Irwin in the final two by earning six of seven Jury votes. Unlike some winners, Jun has never returned to the franchise to compete again. Jun was born in Seoul, Korea, before moving to New York City where she was raised. Jun and Noah now live in Ghent where she focuses on the single-mom life as well as her content strategy firm, Jun Song & Co.