The last Korean imperial heir divorced his American wife after relatives pressed for a son, died in the Tokyo building where he was born, and was given an adopted son after his death

Yi Gu was born in Tokyo in 1931, son of Crown Prince Yi Un and Yi Bangja, a Japanese princess, and grandson of Emperor Gojong. He studied architecture in the United States and worked in New York for I. M. Pei's firm. He married Julia Mullock, an American. In 1963 the couple moved to Korea and lived at Nakseonjae in Changdeok Palace. His airline, Shinhan, went bankrupt in 1979. They separated and divorced in 1982 after 24 years of marriage; Dong-A Ilbo reported that relatives pressed for the divorce because she had no child and was not Korean. He moved to Japan. He died of a heart attack on 16 July 2005 at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, the former residence where he had been born^†. He had no son. On 22 July the Jeonju Yi Royal Family Association made Yi Won, 44, a Hyundai Home Shopping manager, his adopted son, and Yi Won served as chief mourner at the funeral at Changdeok Palace on 24 July. Yi Gu was buried in Namyangju near his father. His cousin Yi Hae-won, a granddaughter of Gojong, rejected the choice and was crowned "Empress" at a private ceremony in September 2006^†; she died in 2020 aged 100. Julia Mullock died in Hawaii in November 2017.