Keigo Oyamada quits role at Olympics opening ceremony following past bullying

Japanese musician Keigo Oyamada on Monday resigned from the creative team at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics after admitting he bullied children with disabilities many years ago in the latest scandal to rock Already unpopular games.

The resignation of Oyamada, who was in charge of musical composition, comes just before Friday’s opening ceremony after triggering an outcry on social media for his past actions as his recent apology failed to quell the outcry in line questioning the relevance of his role in Tokyo. Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Oyamada, 52, said on Twitter Monday that his acceptance of the team’s request was something that “lacked consideration for various people,” and that he had “offered (his) resignation to the committee. ‘organization”.

Games organizers have said that Oyamada’s participation in the ceremony, a lineup of around four minutes to play at the start, will not be used, as an alternate plan is currently being considered.

The organizing committee said in a statement that while acknowledging Oyamada’s actions as “absolutely unacceptable”, they decided to keep him in his post, taking into account his apologies and the upcoming Games. But they said “this decision was wrong” and decided to accept his resignation.

He will also no longer participate in the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, which is due to start on August 24, said Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto.

The well-known musician’s exit from the Games follows days of controversy over his confession in magazines published in the 1990s in which he boasted of harassing people, including his classmates, as a child. After his appointment was announced last Wednesday, his confession from decades ago surfaced and calls for his resignation intensified.

Oyamada admitted on Friday that interviews published in the January 1994 edition of Rockin’On Japan magazine and the August 1995 edition of Quick Japan magazine correctly quoted him when discussing bullying of classmates. disabled “without any regrets”.

Just days before the start of the Olympics, which will be held mostly without spectators amid the coronavirus pandemic, users immediately took to Twitter to express their anger and frustration at the turn of events.

“There is no way that a person who brags about bullying his disabled classmates after becoming an adult would be allowed” to take an active role in the Paralympic Games, a post said on Twitter.

“The Tokyo Olympics are filled with so many problems that I can’t write them all down. They are, in a way, legendary Olympics,” another user tweeted. Others criticized the organizers of the Games for not learning anything from past scandals.

In his tweet last week, Oyamada said: “I sincerely believe that such acts and language should be criticized” and that he feels “deep regret and responsibility” for what he describes as his actions ” extremely immature “.

He added that he has felt guilty for a long time and that he hopes to contact the people he has bullied to offer a personal apology.

Aoi Matamura, general secretary of a support group made up of people with intellectual disabilities and their parents, said the latest scandal should not just end with his resignation, urging Oyamada to “explain himself in his own words” and the organizing committee to clarify its selection process.

Government spokesman Katsunobu Kato said that “harassment and abuse are acts that must not happen and are quite intolerable whether a person is disabled or not.”

Ahead of the Tokyo Paralympic Games which begin on August 24, Kato, Chief Cabinet Secretary, said: “We would like to firmly convey the spirit of ‘barrier-free’ to achieve an inclusive society. “

Yoichiro Yamazaki, editor-in-chief of Rockin’On Japan, also apologized for conducting the interview with Oyamada, saying “It was the wrong thing to do from a moral and sincerity standpoint.”

“I apologize deeply to all the victims and their families as well as to those who felt displeasure while reading the story,” said Yamazaki, who interviewed Oyamada for the story in question.

Oyamada, a former member of Flipper’s Guitar with Kenji Ozawa, went solo under the stage name Cornelius in 1993. He gained popularity among young people for the “Shibuya-kei“The sound of pop music in the 1990s.

The scandal is not the first to shake up the Tokyo Games, which will finally start after a one-year postponement due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori resigned in February from his post as head of the organizing committee for the Tokyo Olympics after being criticized at home and abroad for saying meetings with women tended to be “drag on” because they talked too much.

Summer Games Creative Director Hiroshi Sasaki also resigned in March after it was revealed that he privately suggested plus-size celebrity Naomi Watanabe to dress as a pig for the opening ceremony. in order to play the role of an “Olympig”.

U.S. media also reported on the latest scandal, with broadcaster NBC, whose parent company NBCUniversal Media LLC has the rights to broadcast the Tokyo Games, saying in its post on Sunday that on social media, “critics were far from forgive “despite Oyamada’s apologies.

He included in the story a tweet which read: “How can a person who has committed such discriminatory and violent acts be considered qualified to get involved in the Olympic and Paralympic Games?”