Matsumoto Hitoshi’s 550 Million Yen Lawsuit Raises Reputation Concerns in Court
Downtown’s Hitoshi Matsumoto has finally taken action.
“I’m going to fight it because it has no basis in fact.”
As he had announced, he sued “Shukan Bunshun” and its editor-in-chief. The amount of damages claimed, including defamation, is approximately 550 million yen.
On television, Matsumoto’s junior comedians and celebrities have been sending out comments. Among them, a comment made by TV personality Koji Imada on a TV program the other day is quite on point. It went something like this.
“It’s about whether there was consent or not. The truth about this is still not clear.”
While making excuses, Imada continues,
“With the subsequent follow-ups to the article, rather than whether there was consent or not, it’s turning more into a discussion about the contents of the drinking parties. In the end, it’s just a story about how many drinking parties were held, and the image is extremely negative.”
Indeed, the image is bad.
If the series of reports by the Weekly Bunshun are true, Matsumoto is, to put it plainly, not very cool.
Matsumoto got married in 2009 at the age of 46. He married a former TV personality and they have a daughter.
According to a report in Bunshun, the woman accused him of sexual assault as long ago as eight years ago, around 2015. Matsumoto already had a wife and child.
Despite this, there is a strong possibility that Matsumoto had an affair. It is said that he never approached women himself, but used junior comedians who were obedient to Matsumoto to gather women of his choice. If true, that is not cool.
