Saturday, January 20, 2018

Komuro Tetsuya announces his retirement following his alleged infidelity scandal

Music producer Komuro Tetsuya announced during a press conference on 19 January that he will be retiring from showbiz following a report in "Shuukan Bunshun" on 18 January that he is having an affair with a nurse. Komuro denied that report and said that his move is to bring closure to this scandal. In addition, a variety of factors led to his decision such as his wife KEIKO's health condition following her collapse due to a  subarachnoidal hemorrhage in October 2011, his health issues and his realisation that his music career had reached its limits. Here are the key points which Komuro made during his press conference and I have summarised them below:


- Komuro had told KEIKO about this scandal and his retirement decision but because of her health condition, she is now more like a child rather than a woman and wife to him. Although he has no plans to get divorced, he will have to work on discussing this at length with her so that she can understand fully what is going on.

- When asked to reflect on his music career, Komuro said that his achievements back in the 90s seemed so unrealistic to him especially since he had started his career purely with the intention of doing what he loved. It would be difficult to talk about those years and all of his songs in just a day and he had a lot of great memories from that period.

- As for his decision to retire, Komuro said that it would be odd to say that the Bunshun article was the catalyst but it was indeed something which led to him finally making up his mind after pondering over the decision for some time. However, he stressed that the decision was his and he did not consult anyone beforehand. Especially after KEIKO, the No.1 person who understood his music the most, fell sick, he gradually lost interest in music and failed to produce results as good as he used to be able to. As such, he said that the loss of KEIKO's presence was much more significant than he thought.

- Recounting how he came to be acquainted with the nurse, Komuro explained that this had to do with his health woes from 2 years ago. He was then diagnosed with hepatitis C where he didn't know the cause which meant that both him and KEIKO were undergoing treatment for their respective health conditions. Although he should have cut back on his work activities back then, he continued with his career in order to meet the expectations of others and even appeared on TV or produced music when he was unwell. He subsequently developed side effects from his illness such as the loss of his libido, suffered a fracture in his right leg's joint and acute hearing loss in his left year. Even at present, his hearing is still affected and he was hospitalised in August last year for eating and sleep disorders induced by stress where he met the nurse in question.

However, his condition still didn't improve after being discharged because of his irregular lifestyle and inability to go back to the hospital regularly for treatment. As such, he relied on outpatient medical services where he got the medical staff including the nurse to attend to him at places such as his hotel room and his house, sometimes with KEIKO also being present but she could hardly remember those instances.

This was when he relied too much on the nurse as he had not much contact with other women for a prolonged period of time and was very glad to have someone to talk to when he was undergoing treatment or being put on the drip. Since then, she had become his most trusted nurse and a good confidante as he could talk to her about things which he couldn't discuss with his wife now due to her condition. However, he stressed that there was nothing suspicious going on between them even though the frequency and length of their meetings and where they met would give rise to suspicion that there was something going on between them. Besides, he was no longer keen in sexual relationships due to the loss of his libido but he was fully aware now that his actions have caused a lot of negative feelings to society at large. He also expressed his thanks to the nurse for having helped him all along and that he was sorry for getting her involved in such a scandal.

- When asked why he wanted to retire even if there was nothing between him and the nurse, Komuro said that after he received a suspended sentence in 2010 for his fraud conviction, he had always felt that he needed to make up for his mistake in some other way after he returned to work. However, if he were to just go on a temporary hiatus, he didn't think that it was justifiable considering the nature and extent of this scandal so he arrived at this conclusion as a way to take responsibility. As for his future plans, Komuro admitted that his mind was still a whirl so he could not think about this for now but he was certain that today was the most painful day in his life as he announced his retirement. Ideally, he would have wanted to retire gracefully like his former protege Amuro Namie but things were not meant to be this way for him.

- When asked if it was better for Komuro to relieve himself of the stress from caring for KEIKO, he said that the doctors were not even sure what caused his stress so he didn't want to say that this was due to his role as a caregiver to his wife. Besides, even if he were to distance himself from KEIKO for the time being, he wasn't confident that this would help to resolve his health problems such as the continuous ringing in his ears.

- Komuro is still expected to continue appearing on TV Asahi's audition programme "Last Idol" showing at 12.05am on Saturdays as per the trailer for the 20 January broadcast.

Sources: Nikkansports 1 / Nikkansports 2 / Nikkansports 3

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