The family in viral BBC interview video has broken its silence

The parents in the now-viral BBC interview have broken their silence on becoming overnight internet celebrities.

Robert Kelly, a political science professor specializing in East Asian affairs at Pusan National University in South Korea, was in the middle of an interview with BBC News when his 4-year-old daughter Marion hopped into her father's study followed by her 8-month-old brother James followed.

The video, which has since been viewed over 84 million times, has made Kelly, his wife Kim Jung-A and their two children into "YouTube stars," according to Kelly.

"I made this minor mistake that turned my family into YouTube stars," Kelly told The Wall Street Journal in his first interview since the incident. 'It's pretty ridiculous."

Kelly said that he had been tied up with interview requests all day after South Korea's constitutional court upheld the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye when his children crashed his live interview with BBC News.

"I mean it was terribly cute," he said. "I saw the video like everybody else. My wife did a great job cleaning up a really unanticipated situation as best she possibly could."

Kim, who also appears in the video as she slips while trying to rush the children out of the room, was watching the live interview with the children in the family's living room when her daughter walked off into her father's unlocked study door.

"It was chaos for me," Kim told the Journal. She said she was initially worried that the botched interview would ruin her husband's career and prevent him from making other media appearances. But when BBC asked if it could publish a copy of the clip on its site, Kelly and his wife agreed despite fears that it would draw negative attention to their children. 

Minutes after the video aired, Kelly and Kim started receiving thousands of comments, messages and requests for media appearances. According to Kelly, he turned off his phone's Wi-Fi while he and his wife figured out how to navigate the newfound attention.

The clip has also sparked controversy and follow-up analysis after many internet commenters mistakenly assumed that Kim was the children's nanny instead of their mother.

While Kelly blames himself for not locking the door, he and his wife say they never scolded the children for the incident.

"Yes I was mortified, but I also want my kids to feel comfortable coming to me," said Kelly, who will appear in a press conference to comment on the incident on Wednesday at Pusan National University.