Haruka Ayase dating much younger male singer

Top model and actress Haruka Ayase is reportedly dating a much younger male singer and actor.

According to tabloid reports, Ayase (39) is in a relationship with Jesse Lewis (28), who, despite the name, is a Japanese singer with the group SixTones.

The pair reportedly visited Las Vegas together this month. Lewis’s father is from Las Vegas and the tabloids have interpreted this as meaning he took Ayase “home” to introduce her to his parents.

News about the relationship has had a mixed reaction from the public, some of whom are surprised at the age gap. However, we rarely blink twice if a male celebrity dates a woman 10 years younger (as they often do). For others, it might be just that rumors of Haruka Ayase’s love life has been rare and she seems so elfin that it almost seems wrong that she’s actually a grown woman with sexual needs.

In fact, she’s more than just a grown woman: she’s almost 40! This is also a bit of a surprise. Haruka Ayase is one of those female celebrities who seems to have been part of our lives forever. She started her career very young and initially did gravure until her mainstream modeling and acting took off, and been working in the entertainment industry for almost two and a half decades. That’s quite a career.

She’s carved out of a lucrative niche in playing ditzy characters (despite occasional forays into more serious roles — it was one of these, last year’s Revolver Lily, that co-starred Lewis and led to the pair becoming a couple).

This type of role, of course, is less feasible for a woman in her late thirties, and we are curious to see how her career develops when she inevitably enters her forties.

We actually saw Haruka Ayase once in a restaurant in Aoyama, central Tokyo, and she seemed much slimmer than she often does on TV or in photos. But that was the extent of our brush with fame.

She also made a surprise gravure comeback at the start of the year, though the shoot was far tamer than her earlier ones.