The professor in South Korea whose children barreled in to his office while giving a live Skype interview is speaking out about the hilarious moment that immediately went viral.
Professor Robert Kelly opened up to the Wall Street Journal about his two kids and admitted he was absolutely embarrassed by the situation before he realized the humor in the moment. "It's a comedy of errors," Kelly told the newspaper.
His wife, Kim Jung-A, was in the living room with their two kids, 4-year-old daughter Marion and 8-month-old son James, using her cell phone to record the interview on the TV so her husband would have it. Focused on the screen and filming her husband, Jung-A didn't realize her kids had gotten away from her.
"As soon as [Marion] opened the door I saw her image on my screen," Kelly admitted to the WSJ. But Marion entering the room isn't why she went viral; it was the swagger she had that made her go viral. With glasses and a bright yellow dress, Marion waltzed into the room like she owned it. Kelly explained that an earlier birthday party left his daughter feeling sassy.
"She was in a hippity-hoppity mood that day because of the school party," he said.
Kelly tried to maintain his composure, accidentally stiff-arming his daughter in the process, but "knew it was over" the moment his son stormed into the room in his baby walker.
The professor explained that the tape delay during the interview caused his wife not to see the kids on TV until it was too late. Immediately she slid across the hardwood floors in her socks and corralled their children in the hopes of avoiding the cameras.
"He usually locks the door," Jung-A said. "Most of the time they come back to me after they find the locked door. But they didn't. And then I saw the door was open. It was chaos for me."
Once the "chaos"—interview requests, emails, phone calls—subsided and Kelly overcame his embarrassment, the couple had a good laugh about their two kids.
"I mean it was terribly cute," Kelly said. "I saw the video like everybody else. My wife did a great job cleaning up a really unanticipated situation as best she possibly could...It was funny. If you watch the tape I was sort of struggling to keep my own laughs down. They're little kids and that's how things are."
"Yes I was mortified, but I also want my kids to feel comfortable coming to me," Kelly said.