Between our news division and our coworkers over at The War Zone, we at The Drive have spilled plenty of metaphorical ink about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his nation’s transportation preferences over the last few years. We’ve written about his preference for train travel in spite of his love for airplanes, the Mercedes-Maybach and Rolls-Royce limousines he somehow snuck across the border in spite of sanctions, and his country’s predilection for racking up parking tickets in our fair city of New York.
But somehow, we’ve never written a story about the fact that Kim Jong Un has a car with a secret personal toilet that follows him around wherever he goes.
News of Kim’s shadow john actually dates back several years, dating at the latest to 2015, when a source within the hermit kingdom who claimed to be familiar with Kim’s personal motorcade let slip that the Dear Leader has a series of personalized toilet vehicles that follow him around when he travels.
“The restrooms are not only in Kim Jong Un’s personal train but whatever small or midsize cars he is traveling with and even in special vehicles that are designed for mountainous terrain or snow,” the source told South Korean news agency Daily NK, adding that Kim even travels with a chamber pot in his Mercedes limo for those occasions when stopping his motorcade to scramble over to Kim’s Ultimate Porta-John would be inconvenient.
The news was confirmed last April by North Korean defector and former member of the country’s elite Guard Command
Lee Yun-keol, who discussed Kim’s personal poop preferences with The Washington Post on the eve of the 35-year-old dictator’s first time crossing the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.
“Rather than using a public restroom, the leader of North Korea has a personal toilet that follows him around when he travels,” Lee told The Post. “The leader’s excretions contain information about his health status so they can’t be left behind.”
Kim’s Poopmobile isn’t just to keep foreign powers from discovering how much fiber he’s getting, though. According to Daily NK‘s source, it’s also to help maintain his image North Korean culture as a god-like figure—a being beyond such basic animal functions as dropping the kids off at the pool.
“There always needs to be a personal restroom exclusively for the Suryeong [Supreme Leader] Kim Jong Un,” the source said. “It is unthinkable in a Suryeong-based society for him to have to use a public restroom.”
With Kim en route to his second meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam as of this article’s publication, it seems all but certain that one or more of the North Korean dictator’s personal thrones are currently headed to Vietnam along with him. Considering North Korea’s reported enthusiasm for developing and stockpiling biological weapons, we can only wait and see if any future treaty will include inspection of Kim’s personal secret bio-warfare facilities.