Singer Takuya Nakazawa Sued by Ex Girlfriend for Breach of Engagement
On June 1, it was revealed that Takuya Nakazawa, a popular enka singer who won the Japan Record Award for Best New Artist in 2017, had reached a settlement as of June 10 regarding a court case in which he is being demanded to pay 2 million yen to his ex girlfriend, Ms. A, for breach of engagement.
A lawyer based in Tokyo stated, “The rate for compensation for breaking off an engagement is said to range from 500,000 yen to 3 million yen. The amount varies depending on the relationship with the partner and the length of the affair or adulterous behavior, but I think it is safe to say that the court’s order to pay 2 million yen means that the plaintiffs’ claims were generally accepted.”
The trial began in September of last year. The plaintiff, Ms. A, claimed that she had been engaged to Nakazawa, but that the engagement was eventually broken, and that she suffered emotional distress due to the fact that she knew about his relationships with several women other than Ms. A and was played with by him. In contrast, Nakazawa has consistently said that there was no engagement.
However, the content of the settlement suggests that the court generally accepted Ms. A’s claims, and we wonder how Nakazawa, who appeared before the Tokyo District Court with his attorney on June 10, felt about accepting the settlement.
When they first met, Nakazawa and Ms. A were in a long-distance relationship around 2018, and in March 2019, Ms. A became pregnant. However, Nakazawa, who had not yet made his debut, was concerned about his financial stability to support the child and asked Ms. A for an abortion, to which Ms. A agreed (the procedure was eventually switched to a miscarriage because the miscarriage was discovered on the day the abortion surgery was scheduled).
The two then began dating on the premise of marriage, and the president of Nakazawa’s agency consulted a fortune teller for an auspicious day for the two to live together and enter the registry. April 7 of last year came up as the most likely candidate for the date of their marriage, a trend that would not be surprising if Ms. A thought that she and Nakazawa were engaged.
However, during this period, Nakazawa had also developed a romantic relationship with Ai Nishida, a senior enka singer; in June 2021. Ms. A discovered that Nakazawa and Nishida had a relationship when she looked at Nakazawa’s phone. Perhaps in an emotional state, Ms. A posted on the Internet a screenshot of a graphic exchange of LINE messages between Nakazawa and a woman she believed to be Nishida, suspecting a sexual relationship between them.
Furthermore, Ms. A learned that Nakazawa had another relationship with a woman (Ms. C) other than Nishida, and demanded sexual images from Ms. C, who was a minor at the time (the testimonies of Nishida and Ms. C were reported in FRIDAY Digital on April 12). The relationship between the two became complicated due to a series of such exchanges, which led to the trial.
Statement of a former record company employee contradicts Nakazawa’s testimony.
Mr. A, who appeared in court, and the president of the company where Nakazawa worked, who also acted as his father, testified that “Nakazawa came to me on September 24, to tell me about the marriage. We were discussing registering on April 7 last year. It was decided that they would get married, so I decided to write the marriage certificate. I asked for the necessary information (from Nakazawa) and wrote it down,” but Nakazawa reiterated that “I did not clearly say marriage.”
Nakazawa further stated that Ms. A wrote the marriage certificate and exchanged photos to confirm the contents, “I can only wonder if it was for the plaintiff (Ms. A) to satisfy herself. In addition to this photo, she had also shown me the one that came with the appendix of (marriage information magazine) Zexy, and I thought it was an extension of that,” he testified.
As for why his feelings for Ms. A had faded, he testified, “I had feelings for the plaintiff (Ms. A), but being a singer is a special kind of job, and I thought that if she had such feelings for marriage after making various preparations, but there were many times when we lost contact or she suddenly told me she was going to leave me.”
He also cited the act of Ms. A giving him a screenshot of a LINE message on SNS last June, which triggered the trial, and said, “This was the second time (last June) that she looked at my phone. It happened once in the past, so I wondered if continuing the relationship any longer was a good idea considering that kind of thing.” he revealed.
In addition to the courtroom exchange, FRIDAY Digital directly contacted the former record company to which Nakazawa belonged until last October, and obtained a significant testimony from one of the employees.
“On February 26 of last year, I was approached by someone from Nakazawa’s office and we had dinner in Tokyo. At that time, he (Nakazawa) told me that he was getting married. We even discussed how to make the announcement. Although the name of the woman was not mentioned, judging from her residence and age, we are certain that she is Ms. A, who filed the lawsuit this time.”
This was a well-known fact among some people involved in enka, and the more Nakazawa insisted in court that they were not engaged, the more the contradictions stood out.
Nakazawa was asked by the judge, “Is it true that you had sexual relations with someone other than the plaintiff while you were still in a relationship with her? Am I correct in my understanding that you are at fault?” In response to the question, “I apologize for the fact that I hurt a woman with whom I had no relationship at all,” he apologized, but no words of apology were offered to Ms. A., who ultimately led to the lawsuit, until the very end.
“It seems that the president of the office is behind the scenes preparing to release Nakazawa’s new song at his own expense. Even before the results of the trial came out, there were people who said, ‘He should quit,’ or ‘He should take a break before coming back to the music business.’ This time it went to trial, and it was a chance for Nakazawa to reflect on the actions he had done and come back out, but to let him sing without that period of time is unacceptable. It would be embarrassing if people think that ‘the enka world is an industry where that is allowed’ by continuing his singing career as if nothing had happened.”
If the title given to the tour that started on June 25, “The Sun RIse Again,” is a reflection of his current circumstances, then Nakazawa must first have something he needs to do before singing.
