Ex-SMAP member Nakai Masahiro has effectively ended his career after news broke of a settlement over sexual assault charges. He’s disappeared from mainstream media, and he’s even closed his private fan club.
However, another major media personality—and reportedly a good friend of Nakai’s—is taking a different tack. Comedian Matsumoto Hitoshi is betting he can simply ignore the accusations against him and move his career to his own on-demand service. He figures he can abandon Japanese broadcast TV (which is, frankly, dying) and speak directly to his fans instead.
Will it work? And, if it does, what does that mean when it comes to holding celebrities accountable for their actions in the future?
First, a recap. In December of 2023, Shūkan Bunshun dropped the bombshell that a woman accused Matsumoto of sexually assaulting her and multiple others. The incidents reportedly happened at hotel parties that Matsumoto hosted in locations such as the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo.
Up until then, Matsumoto had made disparaging pronouncements about women in Japan’s nightlife industry, saying he didn’t think night workers deserved the same government subsidies everyone else received during the COVID-19 crisis. According to the accusations, however, he was more than willing to hire women in the industry to entertain him in private.
