A former member of a Japanese boy band, Kauan Okamoto, claimed on Wednesday that he was sexually assaulted as a teenager by Johnny Kitagawa, the guru of Japanese pop (J-pop) boy groups, who died in 2019 at 87 years old. The Johnny Agency
He is one of the first people to publicly accuse Mr. Kitagawa, whose Japanese press had already mentioned acts of alleged harassment and sexual assault for a long time, but who has never been convicted. The controversy resurfaced after the recent broadcast of a documentary by the British public television channel BBC.
“I hope other victims will come forward, all of them, because there are a lot of them,” Okamoto said. I would also like the management of the agency, and Johnny himself if he was present today, to recognize what happened and to ensure that such things do not happen again, ”he said. -he adds. In a statement sent to AFP several hours after Mr. Okamoto’s press conference, the Johnny
According to Mr. Okamoto, it was common for Mr. Kitagawa’s young recruits to spend the night in his apartment equipped with a jacuzzi, a bar and a karaoke machine. The singer said the first time he was assaulted by Mr Kitagawa, he lay down next to him and touched his genitals before performing oral sex on him. Still according to him, Mr. Kitagawa gave him the next day 10,000 yen (68 euros at the current rate), without explanation.
Mr Okamoto believes most of the “100 to 200” young talents he has worked with at the agency have suffered similar attacks. The assaulted boys were “generally aware” that rejecting Johnny Kitagawa’s advances would hurt their careers, he said. Some “even said that it was necessary (to go) to him to succeed”, he added. The local media had already raised accusations of abuse and sexual exploitation of minors against Mr. Kitagawa. In 1999, the weekly Shukan Bunshun had thus published a series of articles presenting the accusations of several boys against him.
Mr Kitagawa had been awarded damages for defamation as a result of these publications, but the decision was partially overturned on appeal, as the court found that the magazine had sufficient reason to publish these accusations, according to the news agency. Kyoto. Mr Okamoto said he did not wish to call for an investigation at this time. “Thanks to Johnny, my life has changed,” he said. But I also believe that what Johnny did, to perform sexual acts on me when I was 15, and what he did to others, is a bad thing.
