Julie Fujishima, now president of Japan’s biggest boyband talent agency, had long been aware of accusations but failed to investigate, experts say
. She said then that “we do not believe there was no problem”.
The panel report said the assaults of recruits, who came to be known as “Johnny’s Jrs”, could have stretched back as far as the 1950s, even before the company was formed. “I had no prior sexual experience so my body went rigid,” one interviewee told the panel. “But I thought it was a baptism of fire for me as a Johnny’s Jr.”
Allegations of abuse surfaced in Japanese media in 1999 and Kitagawa successfully sued for defamation, although the verdict was partially overturned on appeal. He was never criminally charged.
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