The media are speculating about the meaning of today’s planned press conference by comedian Yabe Hiroyuki (35, photo left). All the tabloids put the story on their front pages, as the straight man of popular comedy duo Ninety Nine revealed he had some news to announce about his private life. He has often referred to his long-term relationship with a former model he calls Hitomi-chan. So the media’s first assumption was that it would be a wedding announcement. But this morning, most are speculating that it’s more likely the couple have split up. We’ll have to wait and see what he has to say to reporters during today’s recording of the show “Mecha Mecha Iketeru”. All of the show’s regular cast members, including Yabe’s comedy partner Okamura Takashi (36, photo right), are said to be taking part in the press conference.
• One comedian who is definitely married to a former model is Kajiwara Yuuta (26) of the duo King Kong. He and the 21-year-old recently tied the knot, and they are both to make an appearance on tonight’s edition of the Fuji TV show “Haneru no Tobira”. Kajiwara was briefly married in 2003-04 to a woman who nursed him through an illness that forced him put his comedy career on hold.
• Public broadcaster NHK has been hit by yet another scandal. This time it is the arrest of an employee under the law related to child prostitution and pornography. Emoto Eigen (34) was arrested May 31 and fined ¥500,000 by the Tokyo Summary Court for corrupting a minor after he was found to have paid a 16-year-old high school girl for sex last October. NHK announced that he was to be officially dismissed as of June 26. Emoto joined the network in 1998 as a director, and worked on such shows as “Salaryman Neo”. He switched to the network’s educational channel last summer.
• Talento Yamaguchi Moe (30) announced on her blog yesterday that she gave birth to her first child at a Tokyo hospital on Monday. She and IT company president Ozeki Shigeo (32) married in November 2005.