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Japan’s Johnny Kitagawa boy band agency admits founder’s sexual abuse, as scandal forces shake-up at Johnny & Associates

  • The president of Japan’s biggest boy band agency admitted for the first time its late founder sexually abused young stars, as she announced her resignation
  • A panel estimated at least ‘a few hundred’ aspiring boy band idols collectively dubbed ‘Johnny’s Jrs’ had been victimised by music mogul Johnny Kitagawa

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Johnny Kitagawa was the founder and president of Johnny & Associates. The head of his talent agency stepped down after investigators said the family-held firm turned a blind eye to decades of sexual abuse by its late founder. Photo: Handout
Agencies
The president of Japan’s biggest boy band agency admitted for the first time on Thursday that its late founder sexually abused young aspiring stars, as she announced her resignation.
“Both the agency itself and I myself as a person recognise that sex abuse by Johnny Kitagawa took place,” said Julie Fujishima, a niece of the accused music mogul who died in 2019.

“I apologise to his victims from the bottom of my heart,” she told a packed news conference in Tokyo while announcing she was stepping down as head of Johnny & Associates “to take responsibility”.

Julie Keiko Fujishima steps down as president of Johnny & Associates Inc., amid allegations its late founder and her uncle Johnny Kitagawa had sexually abused teenagers aspiring to become pop singers for decades. Photo: Kyodo
Julie Keiko Fujishima steps down as president of Johnny & Associates Inc., amid allegations its late founder and her uncle Johnny Kitagawa had sexually abused teenagers aspiring to become pop singers for decades. Photo: Kyodo

“I take seriously what happened,” she said.

Kitagawa died of a stroke aged 87 in 2019.

Founded by Kitagawa in 1962, Johnny & Associates has an outsize cultural presence in Japan, engineering the birth of J-pop mega-groups including SMAP, TOKIO and Arashi that amassed adoring fans across Asia.

Allegations of abuse surfaced had first been chronicled by local tabloid Shukan Bunshun in 1999, but it wasn’t until early this year that they ignited full-on soul-searching, following a BBC documentary and denunciations by victims.
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