Japanese comedian vows to fight ‘groundless’ sexual assault allegations
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Mr Hitoshi Matsumoto is half of the comedy duo known as Downtown, a household name in Japan.
PHOTO: MATSU_BOUZU/X
TOKYO – Popular Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto, who has denied sexual assault allegations against him published in a prominent magazine, vowed on Jan 8 to fight the “groundless” accusations.
“I’ll fight it,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
His agency Yoshimoto Kogyo announced on Jan 8 that he will suspend performances to focus on the case.
Japan’s Shukan Bunshun magazine in December 2023 published a report quoting two women as alleging that Mr Matsumoto, now 60, forced them into sexual activities at private parties at a Tokyo upscale hotel in 2015.
Mr Matsumoto wished to “suspend his activities for the time being, as continuing his entertainment activities would cause a great deal of burden to many more stakeholders and co-stars”, the agency said in a statement.
“Matsumoto expressed his strong desire to focus (on the case),” it said.
In December, the agency, which said it was considering legal action, said there were “no facts whatsoever” in accusations published in Shukan Bunshun against Mr Matsumoto.
Among the claims, one woman alleged forced oral sex and the other said she was forcibly kissed.
Mr Matsumoto is half of the comedy duo known as Downtown, a household name in Japan.
Shukan Bunshun was one of the first publications to report, as long ago as 1999, on a sex abuse scandal that rocked Japan’s entertainment industry earlier in 2023.
A boy band empire formerly known as Johnny & Associates admitted in September that its late founder had sexually abused young recruits over decades, leading to an organisational shake-up.
The global #MeToo movement was slow to pick up in Japan, where many victims were said to be too scared to come forward, although a handful of high-profile cases recently forced a reckoning. AFP