This undated file photograph launched by Jiji Press on Jan. 20, 2025, reveals Masahiro Nakai, a former member of the J-Pop boy band sensation SMAP and a star tv host, in Tokyo. Japanese media introduced on Jan. 23, 2025, that the J-pop star would retire after intercourse misconduct allegations. Nakai, one among Japan’s greatest boy band stars and a star tv host misplaced a number of of his reveals on Japanese TV this month following media experiences he had paid a big monetary settlement to an alleged sufferer. Picture: Jiji Press/AFP/Japan Out
Certainly one of Japan’s greatest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, introduced his retirement Thursday, Jan. 23, over sexual misconduct allegations, experiences stated, within the newest scandal to rock Japan’s leisure business.
Nakai’s announcement comes after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder Johnny Kitagawa for many years sexually assaulted teenage boys and younger males.
Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — a part of Johnny & Associates’s profitable steady — that swept the charts in Japan and throughout Asia throughout the band’s almost 30 years of fame.
Stories emerged final month that Nakai, 52, who because the demise of SMAP has develop into a profitable tv host, had paid an unnamed girl a lump sum of 90 million yen ($570,000).
The allegations concern a 2023 encounter with the lady that main tabloid journal Shukan Bunshun stated concerned a closed-door setting and a “sexual act in opposition to her will.”
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This month, Fuji Tv suspended a weekly present hosted by Nakai, whereas different main networks additionally dropped the presenter.
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On Thursday, native media quoted an announcement from Nakai to his paid fan membership saying he was stepping again from present enterprise altogether.
Nakai stated he had “accomplished all discussions with TV stations, radio broadcasters, and sponsors relating to my termination, cancellation, elimination, and contract annulment,” the Mainichi newspaper stated.
“I’ll proceed to withstand all issues sincerely and reply in a wholehearted method. I alone am chargeable for the whole lot,” Nakai reportedly stated.
AFP was not instantly in a position to verify the announcement with Nakai’s company, and the star’s web site was overwhelmed with guests.
‘Outraged’
Nakai issued an announcement printed in native media earlier this month apologizing for “inflicting hassle” and saying a few of what had been reported was “totally different from the details.”
He stated then he had been quiet on the matter to date attributable to confidentiality obligations however acknowledged {that a} settlement had been reached “via the brokers of either side.”
This file image taken on Dec. 30, 2015, reveals Japanese boy band SMAP members (left to proper) Masahiro Nakai, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Shingo Katori, Goro Inagaki and Takuya Kimura in Tokyo. Picture: Jiji Press/AFP/Japan Out
Fuji Tv has additionally come beneath fireplace over its dealing with of the affair, with dozens of high manufacturers together with Toyota and McDonald’s pulling their adverts from the broadcaster. On Thursday its shares have been down 7.8 p.c.
Shukan Bunshun and different retailers have alleged a Fuji TV government was concerned in organizing Nakai’s assembly with the lady.
Fuji TV has denied these claims however stated final week it was probing the matter after a US activist investor stated it was “outraged” by the corporate’s lack of transparency.
Fuji’s president Koichi Minato held a press convention on Friday however declined to debate particulars of the allegation.
The information convention drew extra criticism as a result of solely a small variety of media have been invited and no video was allowed.
Minato additionally drew ire by solely asserting an inside probe to be carried out by a committee that was but to be fashioned.
Different TV channels have introduced their very own investigations into whether or not comparable occasions between celebrities and ladies had been organized.
On Tuesday Nippon TV stated that it will look into “whether or not there have been any ‘inappropriate sexual contact throughout meals, and many others.’ at manufacturing websites and elsewhere.”
TV Asahi on Wednesday stated it has carried out interviews and concluded there have been no situations of “inappropriate conduct”.
Denunciations
Music mogul Kitagawa, who died aged 87 in 2019, had for many years sexually assaulted teenage boys and younger males in search of stardom, his company lastly acknowledged in 2023.
Allegations about Kitagawa swirled for many years nevertheless it was not till that 12 months that they ignited requires compensation following a BBC documentary and denunciations by victims.
Japan’s showbiz business was then rocked by one other bombshell sexual assault scandal involving Hitoshi Matsumoto, one of many nation’s hottest comedians.
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In November, Matsumoto stated he was withdrawing a libel case in opposition to the Shukan Bunshun journal that printed the allegations, together with that he pressured oral intercourse on one girl, and forcibly kissed one other.