The president of Japan’s largest boy band agency acknowledged on Thursday her predecessor’s decades-long sexual abuse of young recruits to the national music scene while announcing her resignation.
“The agency and I personally acknowledge the sexual abuse committed by Johnny Kitagawa,” Julie Fujishima, niece of the fallen J-pop pope who died in 2019, said at a press conference. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart to his victims,” she added.
His resignation comes a week after the release of the results of an investigation into Johnny Kitagawa’s sexual assaults against numerous young talents dating back to the 1950s.
Mr. Kitagawa, who died in 2019 at the age of 87, founded the Johnny & Associates agency in 1962, which ruled the Japanese entertainment industry for decades and created famous “idol” groups such as Smap, Arashi and Tokio.
The local media had already mentioned allegations of abuse and sexual exploitation of minors against him during his lifetime. In 1999, the weekly newspaper Shukan Bunshun published a series of articles detailing several boys’ allegations against him.
However, Mr. Kitagawa was awarded damages for defamation following these articles, although the decision was partially overturned on appeal.
Julie Fujishima has named singer and actor Noriyuki Higashiyama, a veteran of the agency, as her successor.
“It will take a very long time to regain people’s trust,” Mr. Higashiyama said, adding: “I will devote the rest of my life to solving this problem.”
Ms. Fujishima said she would still remain in charge of the agency to help “compensate” victims.
“Several hundred” victims
The Johnny Kitagawa controversy flared again after a documentary aired on British public television channel BBC earlier this year and one of his alleged victims made open allegations.
The talent agency’s president then apologized but denied knowledge of her predecessor’s actions.
A commission commissioned by Johnny & Associates to investigate the matter estimated that at least “several hundred” young men had been sexually abused by Mr. Kitagawa.
The investigative report published at the end of August, based on interviews with 41 alleged victims and agency executives, contains explicit reports of sexual abuse.
It recommended the resignation of Ms Fujishima, who succeeded Mr Kitagawa in 2019, saying she had long known about the allegations but had chosen to turn a blind eye.
According to the report’s authors, this presidential attitude fostered a state of mind that gave agency officials the impression that they could “handle Kitagawa’s sexual abuse very well as if it had never happened.”
“Replacing the current president is critical to reforming and rebooting the agency,” the panel said.