TOKYO: The late founder of Japan’s biggest boy band empire had been sexually assaulting his young recruits for decades, some of the victims alleged in a report by an external panel on Tuesday.
The talent agency Johnny and Associates was established by Johnny Kitagawa in the early 1960s and grew to dominate show business in Japan, but he was dogged for decades by allegations of sexual abuse against boys seeking stardom.
Kitagawa died of a stroke at age 87 in 2019, having engineered the birth of J-pop mega-groups including SMAP, TOKIO and Arashi that amassed adoring fans across Asia.
The panel, consisting of a lawyer, a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist, was commissioned by Johnny and Associates to address the allegations of abuse.
It recommended that the current president, Kitagawa’s niece Julie Fujishima, should resign because she had long been aware of the…
