The main agency of Japanese boy band Johnny & Associates, which recently admitted to sexual assault by its late former founding president, announced Monday that it would split into two separate entities and change its name.
“As a member of the attacker’s family, I believe it is my duty to dissolve the agency,” Julie Fujishima, the agency’s former president and still its majority shareholder, said in a statement read during a news conference.
Johnny & Associates, renamed Smile-Up, will now focus on “fully compensating the victims and then cease its activities,” said new president Noriyuki Higashiyama.
A new structure, whose name will be chosen later based on fan suggestions, will manage the artists’ careers.
On September 7, Ms. Fujishima publicly admitted that her uncle and predecessor, Johnny Kitagawa, had sexually abused young recruits to the national music scene for decades.
She immediately announced her resignation but remained the agency’s majority shareholder and was replaced by Mr. Higashiyama, a singer and actor who is himself a veteran of the agency.
Mr. Kitagawa, who died in 2019 at the age of 87, founded Johnny & Associates in 1962, which ruled the Japanese entertainment industry for decades and launched famous “idol” groups such as Smap, Arashi and Tokyo.
The local media had already mentioned allegations of sexual assault on minors against him during his lifetime. In 1999, the weekly newspaper Shukan Bunshun published a series of articles detailing several young men’s allegations against him.
However, Mr. Kitagawa was awarded damages for defamation following these articles, although the decision was partially overturned on appeal.
The controversy flared up again after a documentary on the British public television channel BBC aired in early 2023 and one of its alleged victims made open accusations.
In a report released in late August, an investigative commission initiated by the agency estimated that at least “several hundred” young artists had been sexually abused by Mr. Kitagawa.
And around 325 people have made claims for damages so far, the authority said on Monday.
Many major brands such as McDonald’s, Nissan and the Japanese brewery Kirin have announced in recent weeks that they will stop their advertising activities with the stars of Johnny & Associates.
The Japanese public television NHK also decided at the end of September to end its cooperation with this agency and thus deny its artists participation in the station’s very popular music programs.