Japan pop agency head resigns over sex abuse by late founder

The head of Japan’s influential J-pop talent agency Johnny & Associates stepped down Thursday after criticism that management mishandled sexual abuse allegations against its late founder.

The resignation of Julie Keiko Fujishima, niece of founder Johnny Kitagawa, follows an investigation that found the music impresario abused “at least hundreds of victims” between the early 1970s and mid-2010s.

The investigators’ report also blamed the agency’s family-led management for allowing the misconduct to continue.

Before his death in 2019, Kitagawa (87) built a stable of popular boy bands that included Hikaru Genji, SMAP, Arashi and Sexy Zone. The company’s stars have for decades dominated Japan’s media and advertising industry as well as the world’s second-biggest recorded music market.

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Although weekly news magazine Shukan Bunshun ran a story about Kitagawa’s abuse in the late 1990s, he was never charged.

Since the BBC aired a tell-all documentary in March, more Japanese media took up the story, lawmakers voiced outrage and United Nations’ human rights experts criticised the talent agency for its handling of the allegations.

Founded by Kitagawa in 1962, Johnny & Associates has an outsized cultural presence in Japan, producing some of the most popular names in J-pop including SMAP and Arashi, both with massive fan bases across East Asia.

At a press conference carried live by most broadcasters, Kitagawa’s niece Julie Keiko Fujishima (57) bowed deeply, apologising for the abuses and saying she had stepped down on Tuesday.

Some victims had earlier criticised the agency for failing to acknowledge the abuse by Kitagawa.

“With so many people speaking out, we confirm this as fact,” Fujishima said, who occasionally broke down in tears during the news conference. She added that she would remain as a director at the agency to organise help for victims.

Noriyuki Higashiyama, a former member of the hit 1980s boy-band Shonentai, was the new head of the agency, she said.

Higashiyama (56) said he had never been a victim of the abuse or witnessed it, but had been aware of the rumours. “I couldn’t, and didn’t, do anything about it,” he said.

“It will take time to win back the lost trust, but I will devote the rest of my life to dealing with this problem,” he told the press conference, saying he would retire from performing at the end of the year.

Calling the scandal “the most pitiful incident in human history”, Higashiyama said there had been debate, but no conclusion, as to whether the agency should change its name.

The first media reports of Kitagawa’s abuses of boys and young men, known as Johnny’s Juniors, were carried by local tabloid Shukan Bunshun in 1999, but the scandal blew wide open this year as more victims came forward after the BBC’s report.

A victims’ group called for a formal apology from the talent agency, and revisions to laws to protect children not only from abuse by a parent or guardian but other adults in positions of power. An opposition party put forward a Bill, which failed to pass during the last session of parliament.

One former “Junior”, Kauan Okamoto, told a press conference in April that he had been the target of Kitagawa's advances on as many as 20 occasions since he was 15.

“Juniors” would regularly sleep over at Kitagawa’s apartment in groups, with one or several being targeted by Kitagawa for the night, he said. On one occasion, Okamoto said he had received oral sex from Kitagawa, and cash the following day.

A report published last week by a third-party investigation team led by a former attorney general and commissioned by the agency also described similar testimony from victims.

Despite his status, Kitagawa kept a low profile in public and few photographs of him are available. He never faced criminal charges and continued recruiting teenage boys until his death.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Japan, Kitigawa was known as Johnny-san by the boys on his agency’s books. He cultivated generations of male idols and all-boy bands, a business model that has been emulated across East Asia. – Agencies