There’s a good number of tarento who have been busted for carrying on with late teen groupies, and every week there’s a teacher getting busted for kiddie porn, but no famous people, dead or alive, seem to have been involved in serial kiddie-fiddling. To everyone here’s disappointment, even Johnny Kitagawa remains a god.
Anyone with a good explanation? I’ve always suspected that when Johnny’s quit their groups to “study English” abroad they are being exiled for some hushed-up naughtiness, but is that correct? Getting caught with a single spliff or being on speed gets overkill coverage, by contrast.
PS: Keep your andrenochrone worldwide lizard people conspiracies to yourselves, thank you.
4 comments
Who are those people?
Jeez, crazy how many famous serial pedophiles the UK had.
You would probably be pretty hard pressed to find a celebrity with a reputation like that. Anyone like that would have to be a very high ranking businessman in order to get away with it – much like the example you gave. Kitagawa owned his company and built everything up on his own – he had nobody to answer to but himself so his reputation ultimately didn’t matter so much in order to continue with his business. But in the word of celebrities, reputation is everything and people aren’t going to want you around if they think you’re a bad person.
Celebrities in Japan regularly lose their careers over much smaller offenses like cheating (Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Becky, etc), domestic violence (Bobby), drugs (Erika Sawajiri, Pierre Taki, and others), groping (Tatsuya Matsumoto / Tatsuya Matsuki), getting a tattoo (ryuchell, although he seems to have had a bit of a comeback), etc. And if you want to go into the world of idols, many have lost their careers over boys, smoking cigarettes, and other simple matters. The only celebrities I can personally think of who’s career survived a major scandal would be Takeshi Kitano who spent 6 months in jail for storming the office of a magazine and attacking the staff together with a group of his friends, and Seiko Matsuda who was involved in an affair with the lover of her rival Nakamori Akina which led to Nakamori’s suicide attempt.
Given how easily celebrities can lose their careers here, I don’t think someone in that field would be able to get away with decades of kiddy diddling. It would absolutely have to be a producer, a very high ranking businessman, or a politician who gets by because of the power of their family name. But hey, maybe I’m wrong.
You answered your own question, really. The talent industry functions as its own country and regulates itself – Johnny Kitagawa was obviously a messed up character yet he is the god of their industry so nothing happens to him. Talents have minimal leverage so they get crucified career-wise whenever they do anything minor.