Japanese-Brazilian singer-songwriter Kauan Okamoto alleged during a press conference that over the course of four years, beginning in 2012 when he was 15, he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Kitagawa, who died age 87 in 2019. In 1999, Japanese magazine Shukan Bunshun published accounts of other young men and boys who claimed they were sexually abused by Kitagawa. They ‘knew it was my turn’Singer-songwriter Okamoto joined Kitagawa’s agency in February 2012 while he was in junior high school. Okamoto said Kitagawa would often invite these young recruits to spend the night in his apartment, and pick “favorites” among the boys. “He began massaging my feet,” Okamoto said, and alleged that Kitagawa touched his genitals and performed oral sex on him.

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