Media helicopters hovered overhead and photographers camped out in front of Japan’s top talent agency last week after one of television’s cleanest-cut stars was arrested for public indecency.
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi of the pop group SMAP was found drunk and naked in a public park in Tokyo in the early hours of the morning, his agency said in a statement. He was alone and shrieking at the top of his voice, media reports said.
“What’s wrong with being naked?” he demanded of a police officer who tried to question him after receiving a complaint about the noise, Kyodo news agency said.
Kusanagi, 34, shot to fame almost 20 years ago as a member of SMAP, the popular boy band whose five members have gone on to monopolize Japanese TV screens in everything from drama to variety and even cookery shows.
The slender Kusanagi is seen as perhaps the most serious of the five, known for his acting skills and fluency in Korean, which brought him fame in South Korea.
But Thursday’s incident risks damaging the commercial juggernaut of SMAP, whose members, especially heartthrob Takuya Kimura, are popular with advertisers. Corporations including Toyota said they were pulling commercials starring Kusanagi.
Even Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama expressed anger, because the actor was the face of a government campaign to get the public to switch to digital television.
Kusanagi’s agency, Johnny and Associates, a big name in the Japanese entertainment world, issued an apology.
“We apologize deeply for the trouble and worry caused to everyone, especially his fans,” the agency said in a faxed statement.
Call it an “idol” threat. Fox television faces an uncomfortable future when the two biggest stars on its No. 1-rated show American Idol openly discussed leaving, which experts said could send viewership plummeting in future seasons.
Paula Abdul, whose often quirky behavior has been a hot topic for years, told ABC News program Nightline that her contract ends after this season. And acid-tongued Simon Cowell, whom critics call the show’s real star, gave several interviews in which he contemplated an exit when his deal ends next year.
“You take out one person like Paula or Simon, [and] you’re affecting every other player in this grid,” said Time magazine television critic James Poniewozik. “They’re a family, a dysfunctional family, and it’s tough to mess with that.”
Cowell, who also has a hit show on the other side of the pond, said on Friday he was embarrassed at his initial reaction to the UK’s latest singing sensation Susan Boyle, but warned that just because she is a hit with fans, she is not a winner yet.
Cowell, the creator and a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, said he was fed up with stories about the hair, eyebrows and cats of the never-married 47-year-old Boyle, and he urged her to focus now on winning the television talent competition.
“She has got four weeks to prepare for the biggest night of her life, and she has got to sing better than she sang before with all those expectations on her. But it could all go horribly wrong for her because there are so many other distractions,” Cowell told TV reporters in Los Angeles.
“Get yourself together sweetheart for the big one — the semifinal. Shut the door, choose the right song and come back as who you are, not who you want to be,” he said.
Boyle, a spinster who lives alone with her cat, became one of the world’s hottest celebrities last week after surprising judges with her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream on the popular talent show.
“We were all guilty on the panel of judging her before she sang, and we got it utterly wrong. You watch it back and it is embarrassing,” said Cowell.
Beam him back up! Leonard Nimoy says he would be onboard for more Star Trek. After a 19-year absence, Nimoy reprises his iconic role as Mr Spock in director J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek prequel. Paramount Pictures is already preparing a sequel to the highly anticipated sci-fi franchise reboot set to premiere May 8.
“If J.J. Abrams calls me, I answer the phone,” Nimoy said during a recent interview. “I don’t say ‘never’ anymore.” Nimoy, 78, chuckled when asked about possibly reuniting on-screen with William Shatner, the original James T. Kirk actor who doesn’t appear in the new voyage. Nimoy said Shatner told him “now we’re even” in regard to appearing in the Trek prequel after Shatner cameoed without Nimoy in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations.
Nimoy will next appear as Massive Dynamic founder William Bell in the May 12 season finale of Fox’s Fringe.
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