Japan boyband agency admits founder's sexual abuse
The president of Japan's biggest boyband agency admitted on Thursday that its late founder sexually abused young aspiring stars, decades after the allegations against him first emerged. Johnny Kitagawa died of a stroke 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 of abuse surfaced in Japanese media in 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 myself as a person recognise that sex abuse by Johnny Kitagawa took place," said Julie Fujishima, a niece of the accused music mogul who died in 2019. "I apologise to his victims from the bottom of my heart," she told a packed news conference in Tokyo while announcing she was stepping down as head of Johnny & Associates "to take responsibility". "I take seriously what happened." Fujishima, who said she had stepped down on Tuesday, named singer and actor Noriyuki Higashiyama, a veteran member of the talent agency, as her successor. "It will take an enormous amount of time before we can regain trust," Higashiyama said. "I will stake the rest of my life on addressing this problem." Fujishima said she will remain in the agency's leadership to help "compensate" victims. Before his death, Kitagawa had successfully sued for defamation over the claims, although the verdict was partially overturned on appeal. He was never criminally charged. (AFP)