Her father was from Seongju County in North Gyeongsang Province, and is the descendant of Lee Jo-yeon, a scholar and writer during the Goryeo Dynasty.

[3] In 1957, she entered the medical school of Ewha Womans University, but gave up her dream of becoming a doctor and married Chun Doo-hwan, then an army officer on January 24, 1958, at Daegu No.1 auditorium.

When Chun Doo-hwan was in power, the extravagant behavior of Lee Soon-ja and the financial fraud of her uncle's younger sibling became a social concern and was criticized by the South Korean society.

As a result, she was satirized by the society as 'Yeonhui-dong's Red Pants', in reference to the neighborhood where her extravagant house was located.

On November 23, 1988, Chun and Lee was forced to leave for the Baekdamsa Buddhist monastery, where they spent two years.

After all kinds of her greedy and extravagant behaviors were publicly reported, Koreans have a very negative impression of Lee.

For this reason, Lee lodged a strong protest to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office of the Republic of Korea through her lawyer.

[7] On May 11, 2006, Lee was summoned by South Korea's Central Investigation Department on suspicion of managing about 13 billion won of illegal savings in May 2004.

Lee later claimed that the 13 billion won was what she had saved after a hard time, but it was allegedly containing a lot of fraudulent funds and was paid as a total surcharge.

[8][9] In 2017, a public opinion survey showed that Lee Soon-ja was the worst first lady in South Korean history.