Former singer SMAP and presenter announces withdrawal from the scenes
New scandal in the world of entertainment in Japan, where a former singer and established presenter announced his retreat from the scenes after being accused of sexual harassment: a story followed by the suspension of the television program, because it was discovered that the national network would have tried to cover the case.
The facts concern the 52 -year -old Masahiro Nakai, one of the members of the SMAP musical group – very popular in Japan starting from the late 80s -, responsible, according to the reconstruction of the weekly Shukan Bunshun, of having forced a woman to a sexual relationship on term of a working lunch in June 2023. To hide the dissemination of the fact Nakai would have found an extrajudicial agreement with the victim, for a value of 90 million yen (550,000 euros).
The Nakai scandal subsequently revealed by the media ended to indirectly involve the television network, the Fuji TV, for the lack of transparency shown, leading many Japanese companies to withdraw the advertising from the issuer based in Tokyo, including his affiliated stations in the rest of the country. In a message to fans on his social networks, Nakai – without directly mentioning the incident – said he took “full responsibility” and offered his apologies to the woman. In the meantime, Fuji TV has declared that it is ready to establish an independent committee to examine the accusations and that it will hold a press conference at the beginning of the week to update on the legal case.
The Nakai affair follows the scandal of the Johnny & Associates agency, initially emerged in 2020, which ended under the fire of multiple complaints of sexual abuse on aspiring Pop teenage singers by its founder Johnny Kitagawa, continues for decades before his death in 2019 According to Ryunosuke Endo, head of the Association of Japanese commercial broadcasters and vice -president of Fuji TV, “the last event sows once again suspicious on the functioning of private broadcasters as a whole”, with television companies and the public increasingly sensitive to sexual aggressions and other types of harassment in Japan.
