Japan’s largest talent agency, Johnny and Associates, acknowledged this Thursday for the first time the commission of sexual abuse by its founder, Johnny Kitagawa, of minors for decades.
The agency’s current president and Kitagawa’s niece, Julie Keiko Fujishima, announced her resignation at a press conference. “Both on the part of the company and on my personal part, we are aware that sexual abuse occurred by the late Johnny Kitagawa, for which I deeply apologize to the victims, affected people and fans,” said the president.
Kitagawa (1931-2019) was a well-known producer and agent revered in the Asian country for creating a formula for stardom that is still used in the K-Pop and J-Pop industries in South Korea and Japan, attracting young people. and training them until their eventual debut.
Fujishima’s resignation comes a week after the publication of the results of an investigation that demonstrated sexual assaults committed by Johnny Kitagawa against many young talents over decades.
In this investigation, which lasted three months, an internal group concluded that abuse was frequent from the founding of Johnny’s in the 1960s until the middle of the last decade and although they did not give an exact number of cases or victims of Kitagawa, the group of experts spoke of “multiple acts.”
Many victims have recognized that these types of acts were normalized among the agency’s young people, since they knew that they would have to give up their careers in show business if they did not agree.
The former president of the agency, Julie Keiko Fujishima, will be replaced as president by Noriyuki Higashiyama, former member of the musical group Shonentai, actor and television moderator represented for a long time by Johnny’s, who also publicly apologized to the victims.
“For a long time the victims and their families have suffered physically and mentally. I want to face this situation and I have the firm intention of dealing with this issue sincerely and with all my effort,” Higashiyama said at the press conference. They did not indicate what the processes will be to avoid a similar situation in the future or whether financial compensation or psychological support will be provided to the victims.
