One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry.
Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men.
Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame.
Photo: AFP
Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since the demise of SMAP has become a successful TV host, had paid an unnamed woman ￥90 million (US$575,135). The allegations concern a 2023 encounter with the woman that magazine Shukan Bunshun said involved a closed-door setting and a “sexual act against her will.”
Fuji Television this month suspended a weekly show hosted by Nakai while other major networks also dropped the presenter.
Japanese media yesterday quoted a statement from Nakai to his fan club saying that he was stepping back from show business altogether.
Nakai said he had “completed all discussions with TV stations, radio broadcasters and sponsors regarding my termination, cancelation, removal and contract annulment,” the Mainichi reported.
“I will continue to face up to all problems sincerely and respond in a wholehearted manner. I alone am responsible for everything,” Nakai reportedly said.
Nakai issued a statement published in Japanese media earlier this month apologizing for “causing trouble” and saying some of what had been reported was “different from the facts.”
He said he had been quiet on the matter so far due to confidentiality obligations, but acknowledged that a settlement had been reached “through the agents of both sides.”
Fuji Television has also come under fire over its handling of the affair, with dozens of top brands, including Toyota and McDonald’s, pulling their adverts from the broadcaster.
Its shares were down 7.8 percent yesterday.
Shukan Bunshun and other outlets have alleged a Fuji executive was involved in organizing Nakai’s meeting with the woman. Fuji has denied those claims, but said last week it was probing the matter after a US activist investor said it was “outraged” by the company’s lack of transparency.
Fuji Television president Koichi Minato held a news conference on Friday last week, but declined to discuss details of the allegation.
The news conference drew additional criticism because only a small number of media were invited and no video was allowed.
Minato also drew ire by only announcing an internal probe to be carried out by a committee that was yet to be formed.
Other TV channels have announced their own investigations into whether similar events between celebrities and women had been organized.
Nippon TV on Tuesday said that it would look into “whether there were any ‘inappropriate sexual contact during meals, etc’ at production sites and elsewhere.”
TV Asahi on Wednesday said it has conducted interviews and concluded there were no instances of “inappropriate conduct.”
Music mogul Kitagawa, who died aged 87 in 2019, had for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men seeking stardom, his agency acknowledged in 2023.
Allegations about Kitagawa swirled for decades, but it was not until that year that they ignited calls for compensation following a BBC documentary and denunciations by victims.
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