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Masahiro Nakai
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Masahiro Nakai
Masahiro Nakai (中居 正広, Nakai Masahiro; born August 18, 1972) is a Japanese former television personality, actor, radio personality, and singer. He debuted as the leader of the boy band SMAP, which had been the best-selling boy band in Asia. While working as a member of a boy band, he worked extensively as a television presenter, hosting many of his own talk shows, variety shows, music shows, news programs, and several Olympic games as a sportscaster.
He is credited for changing the Japanese entertainment industry, becoming the first non-comedian celebrity to have a career as a television host and expanding the capacity of a boy band. He is one of the wealthiest and highest-paid celebrities in Japan, identified as the highest tax payer in the Japanese entertainment industry by the Japanese National Tax Bureau in 2003.
In December 2024 reports surfaced in Japanese tabloids that Nakai sexually assaulted a woman in her twenties in June 2023. Despite Nakai issuing an apology the following month, many of his TV and radio programs were suspended, cancelled, or removed Nakai as a presenter following the withdrawal of numerous sponsors. Nakai subsequently announced his retirement on January 23, 2025.
Nakai was born in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture. He is the youngest of three boys. As a child, he lived in poverty in a small two-room house with a family of five, and sometimes lacked food. Nakai had dreamed to become a professional baseball player and was a member of a youth baseball team. However, he gave up that dream when he was diagnosed with Little League elbow in the fifth grade of elementary school.
Nakai sent his resume to Johnny & Associates when he was 14 years old in 1986, when he was in junior high school, and after auditioning, he entered the show business in the same year. He was influenced by the fact that there was a boy belonging to Johnny's at the same junior high school and that a model Saki Takaoka and a senior member of Jonny's Atsuhiro Sato were at a nearby junior high school in Fujisawa City.
After five of the other SMAP members auditioning individually the following year, in autumn 1987, twenty boys, from ages ten to seventeen, were put together into a group called The Skate Boys, which was initially created as backup dancers for a famous boy band, Hikaru Genji. In April 1988, producer Johnny Kitagawa chose six out of the twenty boys to create a new boy band and named them "SMAP". Nakai, being the oldest of the group, was chosen to become the leader.
SMAP made their debut in 1991. After their debut, in addition to his work with SMAP, he has hosted television programs, and has also appeared as an actor in television series and movies.
He is especially known for his ability as an emcee for variety show and music show. After being selected to host NHK's New Year's Eve music show Kōhaku Uta Gassen in 1997, Nakai hosted the program a total of six times, and since 1998 he has hosted Fuji Television's summer signature program, FNS 27 Hours TV, a total of eight times, he has been the main host of TBS TV's major music program Ongaku no Hi (音楽の日) every year since 2011.
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Masahiro Nakai
Masahiro Nakai (中居 正広, Nakai Masahiro; born August 18, 1972) is a Japanese former television personality, actor, radio personality, and singer. He debuted as the leader of the boy band SMAP, which had been the best-selling boy band in Asia. While working as a member of a boy band, he worked extensively as a television presenter, hosting many of his own talk shows, variety shows, music shows, news programs, and several Olympic games as a sportscaster.
He is credited for changing the Japanese entertainment industry, becoming the first non-comedian celebrity to have a career as a television host and expanding the capacity of a boy band. He is one of the wealthiest and highest-paid celebrities in Japan, identified as the highest tax payer in the Japanese entertainment industry by the Japanese National Tax Bureau in 2003.
In December 2024 reports surfaced in Japanese tabloids that Nakai sexually assaulted a woman in her twenties in June 2023. Despite Nakai issuing an apology the following month, many of his TV and radio programs were suspended, cancelled, or removed Nakai as a presenter following the withdrawal of numerous sponsors. Nakai subsequently announced his retirement on January 23, 2025.
Nakai was born in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture. He is the youngest of three boys. As a child, he lived in poverty in a small two-room house with a family of five, and sometimes lacked food. Nakai had dreamed to become a professional baseball player and was a member of a youth baseball team. However, he gave up that dream when he was diagnosed with Little League elbow in the fifth grade of elementary school.
Nakai sent his resume to Johnny & Associates when he was 14 years old in 1986, when he was in junior high school, and after auditioning, he entered the show business in the same year. He was influenced by the fact that there was a boy belonging to Johnny's at the same junior high school and that a model Saki Takaoka and a senior member of Jonny's Atsuhiro Sato were at a nearby junior high school in Fujisawa City.
After five of the other SMAP members auditioning individually the following year, in autumn 1987, twenty boys, from ages ten to seventeen, were put together into a group called The Skate Boys, which was initially created as backup dancers for a famous boy band, Hikaru Genji. In April 1988, producer Johnny Kitagawa chose six out of the twenty boys to create a new boy band and named them "SMAP". Nakai, being the oldest of the group, was chosen to become the leader.
SMAP made their debut in 1991. After their debut, in addition to his work with SMAP, he has hosted television programs, and has also appeared as an actor in television series and movies.
He is especially known for his ability as an emcee for variety show and music show. After being selected to host NHK's New Year's Eve music show Kōhaku Uta Gassen in 1997, Nakai hosted the program a total of six times, and since 1998 he has hosted Fuji Television's summer signature program, FNS 27 Hours TV, a total of eight times, he has been the main host of TBS TV's major music program Ongaku no Hi (音楽の日) every year since 2011.
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