Yui Imaizumi is pregnant and married, but new husband prefers schoolgirls
Spare a thought for Yui Imaizumi.
The former Keyakizaka46 cutie seemed to have found love and happiness with a man, albeit one who does not use condoms and presumes there are no consequences to ejaculating inside her.
After a tough time last year when she contracted the coronavirus, but also showed us how busty she is on Zoom, Imaizumi recently announced her marriage to 28-year-old YouTuber Mahoto Watanabe.
The 22-year-old, who left Keyakizaka46 in 2018, also announced that she was pregnant, so in other words — this is yet another celebrity shotgun wedding.
A moment for fans to congratulate Yui, right? (And for her managers to ruefully note that she may well now retire to the entertainment industry.)
But then people remembered Watanabe’s past, such as when he was arrested in June 2019 for beating up his then girlfriend while drunk. He allegedly even stepped on her face. He was not charged, it should be noted, and he issued apology videos, but it effectively brought his YouTuber career to an end — after a peak of 2.8 million subscribers.
And then more news came out. Screenshots spread on social media apparently showing an exchange between Watanabe and a 15-year-old schoolgirl, where he requests her to send him lewd photos of herself. He even asks her to send a selfie with her student ID so he can confirm her age.
He admits to being in a relationship with Yui Imaizumi but, because he “has lolicon,” she doesn’t do it for him sexually. (Clearly not quite the truth, since she is demonstrably beautiful and he managed to get her pregnant.)
Watanabe came clean to his management company, UUUM, that the messages are genuine and the agency announced they were cutting ties with him. (In Japan, talent management agencies employ the talent, not the other way around.) So he probably has no income anymore.
Imaizumi, who is also a lingerie model for Peach John, has not been active on her official social media channels since last autumn. Perhaps it was around then that she realized she was pregnant and had to make a big decision. Though according to media reports, Watanabe’s exchange with the schoolgirl asking her to send him explicit photos took place in November.
Yui-chan, sorry, but we think you picked a bad apple.
Update (July 2021): Mahoto Watanabe was indicted and convicted on child pornography charges and ordered to pay a fine in April. Yui Imaizumi gave birth in June but it seems that, despite the January announcement, she and Watanabe are not actually married legally (i.e., they never submitted the formal paperwork). She has also terminated her contract with her agency, so she’s also unemployed — just like him. Yikes!
5 Comments
I have a feeling that the baby was conceived out of sheer stupidity considering the kind of shit this guy has done in the past.
Yeah she is just stupid. She is just marrying the guy because he got her pregnant. She really is dumb since she is just 22, so many of these Japanese group member’s are just so fucking stupid.
@AeronSky
But then her choice is either to terminate the pregnancy or be a single mother, neither of which are easy. Sometimes celebrity couples also deliberately get pregnant like this as it is one of the few ways they can get married within their restrictive agency contracts. The agencies don’t want their talent to get married, since it affects the public perception of the idol and, in the case of women, means being unable to earn the agency money for some time if they start a family.
I know that her life is her choice, but couldn’t she looked him up first before she got knocked up? Also giving second chance is a gamble because you wouldn’t know if someone really has reflected on themselves or not. In this case, it seems the guy hasn’t. Wishing the best for all the people involved in this shit scandal
@Riffalo
The first scandal, where he was accused of assault, was pretty big news (we don’t follow the ins and outs of the pantheon of Japanese YouTubers but even we heard about it), so we doubt that Imaizumi was unaware of it. But perhaps this guy is a real charmer and knows how to seduce attractive girls, even when his reputation is mud. As you say, it’s a really shitty, sad scandal and we just hope that Imaizumi and her unborn child come out of it OK. Her career was going pretty well, so perhaps she can return to acting and modeling some day in the future.