TOKYO (TR) – Actress Rei Kikukawa announced last week that she is divorcing her husband, IT mogul Yoshiteru Akita.
“Although the shape of our family will change, we will continue to be irreplaceable father and mother to our children,” the 46-year-old actress wrote on Instagram on November 6. “So, we will respect each other and continue to give our children lots of love and nurture them.”
The announcement marks the end of a union that got off to rocky start with reports about Akida having several illegitimate children, reports the site for weekly magazine Josei Jishin.
Kikukawa married Akida, 55, in April 2017. The following month, the weekly reported that the newlywed couple were living separately shortly after the wedding.
At the time, Kikukawa’s agency commented, “Kikukawa’s work is busy, so she hasn’t made any progress on her move yet. When she has time, she plans to move to her new home right away.”
It was that same month that another weekly, Shukan Bunshun, reported that Akita has four illegitimate children.
According to the article, two women gave birth to two children fathered by Akita at around the same time in 2012. One of them, who contemplated suicide after finding out about the other pregnant woman, gave birth to another of Akita’s children three years later.
The fourth child was born to a woman Akita met in 2004 while she was a third-year high school student. Akita, who was married to a different woman at the time, rented the girl a residence in Tokyo. After she became pregnant while aged in her 20s, he paid 1 million yen to cover the cost of the subsequent birth but declined to pay child-rearing expenses and severed ties with her, according to Bunshun.
Two years later after that article was released, Kikukawa announced the birth of her first child in April 2019. Her second child was born in December 2020. Two years later, she revealed that she had given birth to her third child in a radio interview with Michiko Shimizu.
Kikukawa started her career in show business in 1998 after being scouted in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. The native of Saitama Prefecture started as a gravure (pin-up) model for magazines before appearing in a number of films (“Godzilla: Final Wars”) and television programs. She also serves as a news anchor.
Between 2001 and 2006, Akita served as president of Kakaku (operator of shopping portal Kakaku.com). This year, he became CEO of Kufu AI Studio Co., Ltd.
While she was a news anchor information program “Tokudane!” in 2017, she announced her marriage in tears. Three weeks later, rumors began to spread that her husband had been divorced before and that he had four illegitimate children.
A source from an entertainment production company tells Josei Jishin, “Kikukawa’s children are still young, so it was thought she would take a break from work for a while. But she suddenly opened an Instagram account in June of last year. It was also the 25th anniversary of her debut, and she uploaded a photo from a press conference in June 1999 where she declared herself an actress with Ryoko Yonekura.”
Since then, she has appeared on several variety shows, and she even took on the challenge of filming in Kochi Prefecture for “Asa Da! Nama Desu Tabi Salad,” which aired in September last year. In April of this year, she returned to acting for the first time in eight years in the drama “Kawareta Otoko.”
