Hey! Say! JUMP apologizes

Japanese popular idol group Hey! Say! JUMP appeared at the Tokyo Dome City Hall for their annual summer show "SUMMARY 2011". Prior to the actual production, nine of its members met the press, apologizing for one its members' conduct which stemmed into a smoking scandal. Japanese media reports had named the member as "Member A" when detailing the scandal because he was 16. The member in question was Morimoto Ryutaro, who's entertainment activities have been temporarily suspended. The rest of the group apologized to their fans, bowing several times in deep regret.

During the pre-production press conference, the eldest member of the group, Yabu Kota (21) commented quietly "Even though it was sudden, we'd like to take time to apologize for recent events. Recently, one of our members, while still being underage, was caught smoking and this has caused much trouble to everyone. We'd like to apologize for troubling everyone and for worrying our fans." After those words were said, the members bowed deeply.

In a weekly magazine's June issue, the photograph of a smoking scene was published and after verifying that the person in question was indeed a member of Hey! Say! JUMP, their agency Johnny's Entertainment suspended said member's activities. Yabu continued by saying that he was certain that Morimoto was reflecting hard on the importance of being able to work and meeting with fans again. He also spoke to Morimoto on the phone recently and he said that "he (Morimoto) said he was going to concentrate on his studies and so I told him that I wanted him to try hard on what he's doing now."

"We received so much fan support and our goal since being active was to give everyone a dream. We apologize for breaking that dream." Yabu stated during the press conference, apologize numerous times after.

Kitagawa Johnny also commented that Morimoto was realize his mistakes and accept the punishment he was given. As to any further activities and plans for him in the future, there was no mention.

At present, Hey! Say! JUMP is working hard with the nine remaining members of the group. In their performance of "SUMMARY" they showed a much more powerful stage than they did last year, showing various acrobatic movies, flying around the stage where one of the moves they had had to train hard for for two months. They decided to put on additional performances in September at the Osaka Kyocera Dome and one more at the Tokyo Dome. "We want to apologize for breaking our fans’ dreams. We deeply regret this. We want to work hard to regain everyone's trust and grow one step at a time"


thanks to : asian fanatics