The husband of disgraced Japanese pop star Noriko Sakai on Wednesday told a court of their drug use, fueling a media frenzy that has gripped the nation since their arrests in August.
Yuichi Takaso, 41, told the Tokyo District Court that he was carrying illegal “stimulants” at the time of his arrest on Aug. 3 because he was planning to use them later with his wife.
Takaso and Sakai reportedly used methamphetamines on a regular basis.
“If I left it at home, I thought that my wife Noriko might use it alone without me watching,” he told the court, adding that he was concerned about the dangers posed by Sakai’s unsupervised drug use.
“I was thinking that we could meet up later and do it together,” he said.
Takaso’s arrest eventually resulted in drug charges against 38-year-old Sakai, shocking the Japanese public which has seen her grow from a teenage pop idol to become an actress in high-rating television shows and films.
Further adding to the drama of the case, Sakai, who is also well known in China, Taiwan and South Korea, went on the run for about a week before turning herself in to police on Aug. 8 and admitting to habitual drug use.
More than 1,500 people queued for hours in front of the courthouse to join a lottery for 42 gallery seats to see Takaso, a self-described professional surfer who was unknown to the public before his arrest, testify.
Sakai will have her first court hearing this week, which is likely to attract even more local media interest.
Her enduring fame and girl-next-door image have won her advertising contracts with carmaker Toyota, government public awareness campaigns and a role in a 1993 celebrity-studded commercial against youth drug abuse.
Michael Jackson fans will get a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been tomorrow as the movie charting the tragic singer’s final concert rehearsals makes its long-awaited premiere.
More than 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage for Jackson’s aborted comeback have been distilled into a two-hour film being hyped by organizers as the last ever performance by the King of Pop.
Jackson family members and stars are expected to descend on a red carpet at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater, one of more than 15 simultaneous premieres being held in across five continents.
The movie — This Is It — will go on a limited two-week release in theaters worldwide from Wednesday, with advance tickets in several countries selling out within days of going on sale last month.
“It’s a movie about rehearsing for a concert that never happened,” Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s heartbreaking and inspiring all at the same time.”
Jackson, who died on June 25 aged 50, had spent the previous four months rehearsing in Los Angeles for a grueling series of 50 concerts scheduled to begin at London’s 02 Arena in July.
More than 800,000 tickets for the concerts had been sold, with organizers promising one of the “most expensive and technically advanced” live shows ever.
Jackson was putting the finishing touches to the show at the time of his death, which authorities in Los Angeles have ruled a homicide.
Film director Roman Polanski could face two years in prison if extradited to the US after fleeing sentencing in California on child sex charges in 1978, the Swiss justice ministry said. “The US want him to be extradited for sexual intercourse with a minor. This carries a maximum sentence of two years under US law,” justice ministry spokesman Folco Galli said on Friday.
A Bahamian lawmaker who caused a judge to order the retrial of two people accused of trying to extort US$25 million from actor John Travolta was just repeating a “rumor” when he prematurely announced an acquittal verdict, his lawyer said on Thursday. Supreme Court Senior Justice Anita Allen ordered a retrial late on Wednesday after the politician, Picewell Forbes, announced in a live TV and radio broadcast at a party convention that the accused had been cleared. But he did so before the jury in the five-week-old high-profile trial had formally issued any verdict.
Brotherhood, Danish director Nicolo Donato’s tale of a homosexual love affair within a neo-Nazi gang that targets gays and Arabs, took top honors on Friday at the Rome international film festival.
“We’ve been working hard for this movie for four years,” Donato said as he accepted the Golden Marc’Aurelio award from jury president Milos Forman. “This is a dream come true.”
Oscar-winning British actress Helen Mirren won best actress for her role as the wife of 19th-century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy in Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station.
Best actor went to Italy’s Sergio Castellito for Alza la Testa by Alessandro Angelini, in which he portrayed a father whose sole dream is to see his son become a prize fighter.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su