Japan's Johnny Kitagawa sex abuse scandal forces shake-up at J-pop agency

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00 The allegations concern Noriyuki Higashima, the new head of the Johnny and Associates talent agency.

00:07 The 56 year old is a TV personality and he's a household name here in Japan and largely well

00:13 liked. Now in 2005 a former victim of Johnny Kitagawa's, a man called Masato Yamazaki,

00:21 published a book called To SMAP and To All Johnny's Talents. In this book he details how

00:28 Higashima would massage the crotches of some of the boys and one time even put his genitalia

00:35 on the table and told them and I quote "eat my sausage". Now Higashima was asked about this

00:42 during a Thursday's press conference by Japanese journalists. They asked him whether or not this

00:47 actually happened. Higashima said maybe it did, maybe it didn't. He didn't remember but he didn't

00:55 deny the claims. Now people are asking whether or not he is the right person for the job. Higashima

01:01 has made clear that he himself was not a victim of Johnny Kitagawa. He was one of the first pop

01:06 idols to be discovered by Kitagawa and he said that even though he knew that the rumours were

01:12 circulating, he knew that things were happening, these abuses were happening, he didn't and he

01:17 couldn't do anything about them. Now questions remain over how the talent agency is going to

01:24 move forward. Higashima has already made it clear that he's not going to change the name of the

01:29 talent agency which the public has now rightly pointed out bears the name of a prolific sexual

Category

Transcript

Recommended