A Japanese starlet who shaved her head and issued a tearful YouTube apology after spending the night with a man was yesterday scrambling to redeem the girl next door image of all-female group AKB48.
Pictures of the roughly shorn head of Minami Minegishi, 20, were emblazoned on national newspapers and Japan’s Twitter scene was abuzz yesterday over news that the pop princess had broken the band’s cardinal rule: No Dating.
A sobbing Minegishi told fans she had decided to shave her head as an act of contrition after a popular weekly magazine published claims of a night of passion with a 19-year-old boy band member.
“I don’t believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don’t want to quit AKB48,” she says in the video, which had been viewed on YouTube more than 3 million times.
Minegishi, who had long, silky hair at the time, was snapped leaving the apartment of Alan Shirahama, a dancer in an off-shoot of the popular boy band Exile.
Tabloid magazine Shukan Bunshun published its article on Thursday, and hours later Minegishi was pleading to be allowed to remain with AKB48, one of the world’s most successful acts by revenue.
The tryst was “thoughtless and immature,” she told fans.
“If it is possible, I wish from the bottom of my heart to stay in the band. Everything I did is entirely my fault, I am so sorry,” she said.
AKB48, a 90-strong pool of girls in their teens and early 20s, is a money-printing juggernaut that makes much of the accessibility — and the implied availability — of its idols.
Fans have frequent opportunities to meet their favorites, who are rotated in and out of the public eye, according to popularity.
In return for their chance to grace television screens, subway ads and the covers of Japan’s countless celebrity magazines, members of the collective must adhere to strict rules of behavior.
They are allowed to have “one-sided romantic feelings” for a boy, but can never progress beyond hinting at their crush.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese