TOKYO – Media helicopters hovered overhead and photographers camped out in front of Japan’s top talent agency yesterday after one of television’s cleanest-cut stars was arrested for public indecency.
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, 34, of the pop group SMAP was found drunk and naked in a public park in Tokyo in the early hours of the morning, his agency said in a statement. He was alone and shrieking at the top of his voice, media reports said.
‘What’s wrong with being naked?’ he demanded of a police officer who tried to question him after receiving a complaint about the noise, Kyodo news agency said.
‘He has such a clean image,’ one woman told commercial broadcaster TBS. ‘He doesn’t seem like that kind of person.’
But yesterday’s incident risks damaging the commercial juggernaut of SMAP, whose members, especially heart throb Takuya Kimura, are popular with advertisers.
Corporations including Toyota Motor Corp said they were pulling commercials starring Kusanagi.
Even Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama expressed anger, because the actor was the face of a government campaign to get the public to switch to digital television.
Kusanagi’s agency, Johnny & Associates,, issued an apology.
Tokyo police declined to comment on the case.
– Nampa-Reuters
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