On May 22nd, the infamous Takizawa Gareso account, popular for covering news, gossip and internet drama in Japan, made a strange request.
They asked:
[Requesting submissions] A male artist who had a marriage with an ultra famous actress after starring with her on a TV drama has, according to rumors, cheated on said actress with an NHK announcer that he was cast with recently. While tabloids were expected to go to print with said rumors earlier this year, the agency of the male star paid a shocking 1 billion yen to bury the story. While the artist and actress are effectively separated, they are not formallly divorced due to the impact this would have on both of their careers.The NHK announcer is newly married and just started her newly wed life with her husband, but after the affair came to light she has currently been kicked out of her new home and is currently living out of net cafes.
Currently, we are asking those with more information about this story to contact us by DM.
The internet was extremely quick to piece things together. While the account did not explicitly talk about either Hoshino Gen or Aragaki Yui, there are very few ultra famous actresses who have gotten married to singers they have co-starred in a drama with, and so it was easy to piece this together.
In addition, the mentioned NHK Announcer was speculated to be Hayashida Risa, who was reported by various weekly publications to have suddenly gotten divorced earlier this year and was living out of various manga and internet cafes despite being a major anchor.
Within several hours, people were dismayed all across Japan and internationally, with terms such as “Hoshino Gen Maji” (Really Hoshino Gen) entering the currently trending words on Twitter. As a result, both the parties involved as well as Amuse stepped up.
Aragaki Yui‘s official Twitter account was changed to include in her bio that ‘rumors are simply rumors’, and to not believe the internet. She also added that people who are worried for her should not be so concerned.
Agency Amuse took a stronger approach, specifically calling out the gossip account by name, stated that there was absolutely no relationship between Hoshino Gen and the unnamed male singer. They also went on to mention that any attempt to connect the singer and the supposed cheating male artist was a kind of defamation and that they would pursue legal action if necessary.
Hoshino also went on the offensive, taking a screenshot of the comment and posting it in his Instagram stories with a caption reading: “as you can see (from the post made by my agency), there is absolutely no relation between me and the unnamed celebrity in Takizawa’s post, and all the rumors are completely unfounded”.
Hopefully, the couple continue to remain happily married.
