Lim Ji-hyun had made a living out of talking about her experiences growing up under the repressive North Korean regime.
The 26-year-old had been living in South Korea since fleeing North Korea three years ago.
According to the, she now claims that was a lie, and said she was “lured to the South by a delusion that I would eat well and make a lot of money there”.
“It was not the place I had imagined,” she said.
In her last communication with the public, posting on her fan blog earlier this year, Ms Lim talked about enrolling in school, and thanked fans for throwing her a birthday party.
The New York Times reports a videotaped interview posted on the North Korean-government run propaganda site , shows a woman appearing to be Ms Lim describing her new life in the South as miserable.
“I was heartbroken and I wept every day, missing my fatherland and my parents,” she said.
“Every single day of my life in the South was a hell.”
In the video, the woman introduces herself as Jeon Hye-Sung, and said she voluntarily returned across the border to live with her parents.
South Korean authorities said they are looking into the possibility Ms Lim had been kidnapped.
According to Dr Sarah Son of the Transitional Justice Working Group, the 'testimony' of returned defectors can be a 'trump card' for the regime.
Dr Son says that the North Korean government is fighting an influx of information from the outside that could potentially spread skepticism about the regime.
"The regime is fighting a constant battle to have its message heard," said Dr Son, "it's a bit of a trump card for them if they can engineer that kind of testimony from someone who has returned."
Since the rise of Kim Jong-un, at least 25 defectors have apparently returned to the North by choice.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have defected since the 1990s, with most settling in South Korea.
Many find it hard to adjust.
The number of those fleeing the secretive state has also dropped.
