Japan aghast over drunk TV star's naked blunder

Thu Apr 23, 2009 9:28am GMT

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By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - Media helicopters hovered overhead and photographers camped out in front of Japan's top talent agency on Thursday after one of television's cleanest-cut stars was arrested for public indecency.

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi of the pop group SMAP was found drunk and naked in a public park in Tokyo in the early hours of the morning, his agency said in a statement. He was alone and shrieking at the top of his voice, media reports said.

"What's wrong with being naked?" he demanded of a police officer who tried to question him after receiving a complaint about the noise, Kyodo news agency said.

Kusanagi, 34, shot to fame almost 20 years ago as a member of SMAP, the popular boy band whose five members have gone on to monopolise Japanese TV screens in everything from drama to variety and even cookery shows.

The slender Kusanagi is seen as perhaps the most serious of the five, known for his acting skills and fluency in Korean, which brought him fame in South Korea.

"He has such a clean image," one woman told commercial broadcaster TBS. "He doesn't seem like that kind of person."

But Thursday's incident risks damaging the commercial juggernaut of SMAP, whose members, especially heart throb Takuya Kimura, are popular with advertisers.

Corporations including Toyota Motor Corp said they were pulling commercials starring Kusanagi. Continued...

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<p>Japanese star Tsuyoshi Kusanagi is escorted by police out of a police station in Tokyo April 23, 2009. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon</p>

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