TOKYO (TR) – On November 13, former newscaster Mona Yamamoto announced on her Instagram account that she has passed the bar exam. According to Shukan Bunshun (Nov. 27), the 49-year-old has already received a job offer from a law firm.
The tabloid reports that to get to this point has been a rocky road for Yamamoto, one marked by scandals and reinvention.
An entertainment reporter tells Bunshun, “Mona began studying in 2019 and attended Waseda University Law School while raising her three children. She burst out in joy, saying, ‘My new endeavors have borne fruit.'”
Yamamoto, half Norwegian and half Japanese, is from Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture. She went on to study law at Gakushuin University after graduating from a local girls’ high school. After graduating, she became an announcer for TV Asahi in Osaka.
“She’s fluent in English and Italian and holds a first-degree black belt,” a broadcast journalist says. “Her E-cup figure, comparable to a gravure idol, has been described as ‘intelligent and sexy.’ She’s also easygoing and approachable, leading many to expect her to become one of the leading female announcers in the Kansai region.”
“Kiss in the street”
Despite the expectations of those around her, Yamamoto left TV Asahi after seven years and joined talent management agency Office Kitano (now known as TAP). In September 2006, she was appointed anchor of “Tetsuya Tsukushi News 23” for broadcaster TBS alongside Takako Zenba.
However, in October, she was photographed having an affair with then-Democratic Party lawmaker Goshi Hosono by Friday magazine.
Another entertainment reporter tells Bunshun, “Their kiss in the street right after they left a bar looked like something out of a drama. Mona left the show after only five days and was suspended.”
Three months later, she appeared on a New Year’s special wearing a watermelon headgear. She then appeared regularly on variety shows and her popularity recovered.
A year and a half later, she returned to her role as anchor on news program “Sakiyomi” for Fuji TV. However, shortly thereafter, tabloids reported on her affair with Tomohiro Nioka, then of the Yomiuri Giants.
“Josei Seven reported that Mona, a heavy drinker, had met Nioka at a gay bar in Shinjuku 2-chome and spent the night at a love hotel in Gotanda with him,” an insider says. “She left ‘Sakiyomi’ after just one appearance and was suspended indefinitely by her agency.”
“I want children”
After her suspension was lifted, she returned to the entertainment business via a radio show with Makoto Otake in January 2009. Listener reaction was positive, but she retired after only two years.
In 2010, she married real estate investment company president Sei Nakanishi in Hawaii. She retired from the entertainment industry the next year.
“After that, she said, ‘I want children, preferably three,’ and underwent fertility treatments, eventually giving birth to three children as she had wished,” says another entertainment industry insider.
Two years after her retirement, Yamamoto announced the launch of her own agency.
“Rather than returning to the entertainment industry, her main goal was to write and give lectures on child-rearing and women’s lifestyles. To that end, she earned an MBA in the U.K. while raising her children,” says the aforementioned insider.
And now, she’s passed the bar exam.
“She’s even more talked about than Yukino Kikuma, who left Fuji TV to become a lawyer and has a successful TV career,” a television insider says. “She’s sure to be a hot topic among information programs ahead of next spring’s programming restructuring.”
