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TV Networks Drop Smap's Masahiro Nakai Over Sex-Crime Allegations
The Straits Times
|January 09, 2025
Major TV networks have distanced themselves from one of Japan's biggest 1990s boy band stars, after media reports said he paid a woman a large settlement related to alleged sexual misconduct.
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The reports, which emerged in December 2024, said Masahiro Nakai (right, in a 2015 photo), a 52-year-old former member of the hugely popular group Smap, had paid a woman a lump sum of 90 million yen (S$777,000).
That was to settle what Japanese media outlets have described as "sexual trouble" concerning an encounter that took place in 2023.
Details are scarce, but leading tabloid magazine Shukan Bunshun reported that it involved a closed-door setting and a "sexual act against her will".
Major broadcaster Fuji TV said on Jan 8 that its weekly show hosted by Nakai was "cancelled for the time being".
This story is from the January 09, 2025 edition of The Straits Times.
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