The president of Japan's biggest and most successful boyband agency admitted on Thursday, September 7, that its late founder sexually had abused young aspiring stars decades after allegations first emerged. Johnny Kitagawa died aged 87 in 2019, having engineered the birth of J-pop mega-groups, including SMAP, TOKIO, and Arashi, that amassed adoring fans across Asia.
Allegations that he abused young men who wanted to become stars surfaced in Japanese media as soon as 1999. But it was not until this year that they ignited full-on soul-searching, following a BBC documentary and denunciations by victims.
"Both the agency itself and I, as a person, recognize that sex abuse by Johnny Kitagawa took place," said Julie Fujishima, a niece of the accused music mogul who died in 2019. "I apologize to his victims from the bottom of my heart," she told a packed news conference in Tokyo. She said she was stepping down as head of Johnny & Associates "to take responsibility." Fujishima said she would remain in the agency's leadership to help "compensate" victims.
Kitagawa was never criminally charged. Following the agency's admission, a group of Kitagawa's victims said they felt vindicated to a degree, although full recovery remains far off. "Scars left on my heart will never completely go away, but I now feel maybe 10% less burdened," one of them, Yukihiro Oshima, said.
A panel of experts last month released the results of its first in-depth probe, concluding that Kitagawa's abuse went as far back as the 1950s, even before the company was founded. The panel estimated the number of victims at "a few hundred." The report also quoted former recruits alleging in graphic detail how Kitagawa would perform oral sex on them, rub their genitals, or force his way into their beds at night.
The panel said Fujishima, appointed Kitagawa's successor after his death, had been "remiss" in her duties because she failed to probe the allegations despite her knowledge. Her attitude perpetuated the leadership's tendency to look the other way, the report said. Fujishima offered an apology in May but denied she had known about her uncle's predatory history. Her apology came after Japanese-Brazilian singer Kauan Okamoto spoke publicly of his experience of being sexually assaulted repeatedly by Kitagawa.