Unrecognizable Kim Jong Un 'Withered Away’ After Working Too Hard For The North Korean People, Claims State Media

A propaganda TV documentary has claimed that North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un overworked himself for the country last year to the point of “completely withering away” amid growing speculations on the despot’s health.

The state-owned Korean Central TV video, titled “2021, A Great Victorious Year,” captures the moment the diminutive Kim, 37, struggles to walk down some makeshift stairs while clutching an umbrella, his aides scurrying around him, during a visit on a construction site in August 2021, the Business Insider reported.

“[Kim] showed us his fatherly side by doggedly braving snow, rain, and wind while taking on the fate of the nation and people like his own children,” the narrator says. “His body completely withered away, and he showed his motherly side by great suffering and worrying to realize the dreams of the people.”

To boost Kim’s cult of personality, the fawning video also featured him in previously unseen activities, such as riding horses, as it emphasizes that Pyongyang faced its “worst-ever hardships” and “challenges” in 2021 amid the pandemic, according to the New York Post.

The documentary claimed that Kim urgently addressed the national “food crisis” with an emergency policy “to stabilize the people’s lives and the tense food distribution situation.”

Notably, the video did not tackle the dictator’s striking weight loss as South Korea’s National Intelligence Service estimates that the formerly rotund figure lost up to 44 pounds, previously weighing 308 pounds.

Last year, images of the famously reclusive man sparked renewed speculation about his health and frequent disappearances from public view. In June 2021, state media more directly acknowledged Kim’s weight loss after KCTV reported that the public noticed how “emaciated” Kim looked.

However, supporters of the regime perceive it as a transformation to a healthier body shape.

In September, a svelte-looking Kim became the main attraction at a military parade in Pyongyang, where public health workers marched in gas masks and hazmat suits to display the medical front battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s striking how much healthier Kim Jong Un is looking in these photos from yesterday,” journalist and rogue regime researcher Martyn Williams tweeted at the time. “However he is doing it—and there are theories—he looks a lot better than he did a few months ago."