On Jan. 7, 42-year-old actor Mikio Osawa gave a press conference in Tokyo to announce that his 17-year-old son by his ex-wife, actress Mai Kitajima, was not his — biologically, that is.
Last summer, Osawa filed a suit in family court to sever his legal relationship to the boy after he ran a DNA test that Osawa says proves he is not his father. Both Kitajima and her son, referred to by the media as A-kun, disagree.
The tabloids love this story because Osawa used to be the leader of Hikaru Genji, Johnny's & Associates' roller-skating boy-band juggernaut of the late '80s, which broke up in 1994 when Osawa quit to pursue a solo career that was never half as successful. In 1996 he married Kitajima, the daughter of Yoko Naito, one of the most popular movie stars of the '60s, after she became pregnant with A-kun. According to showbiz pundits, the marriage effectively ended his career as an idol, if it wasn't finished already. The couple divorced in 2005 and both have since married other people.