SMAP’s Tsuyoshi Kusanagi held after nude romp

Japan's media and fans of the country's biggest boy band SMAP are in a tailspin after lead singer Tsuyoshi Kusanagi went on a naked, sake-fuelled rampage in central Tokyo.
 
The clean-shaven 34-year-old, who is Japan's favourite 'boy next door', was arrested by police at about 3am on Wednesday in Hinokicho Park near the nightclub district of Roppongi.  "What's wrong with being naked?" Kusanagi reportedly screamed as he hit out at officers bundling him into a plastic tarpaulin.
 
SMAP - which stands for Sports Music Assemble People - was formed by Japanese talent agency Johnny and Associates in the early Nineties. They are hugely popular in Japan and throughout Asia following a string of chart-topping hits over the past two decades.

The incident has not just upset SMAP's army of fans who love Kusanagi for his boyish good looks, but has caused ripples in political and business circles, too. Like the rest of his band, Kusanagi has a hectic schedule of media and sponsorship appearances. He appears on seven weekly shows, including a cookery programme and variety show, as well as numerous prime-time appearances on all six terrestrial channels.
 
Last night advertisers including Toyota and Procter & Gamble moved swiftly to cancel advertising campaigns that star Kusanagi, while television executives said they were considering their position on the scandal.
 
The SMAP singer also fronted a massive public information campaign for the 2011 switch to digital television, which is now in disarray over the indiscretion. Kunio Hatoyama, the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, is reportedly "furious" at the singer and is threatening to drop him from the campaign, one of the Japanese government's biggest ever. "If the report is true, I'm immensely angry," he told reporters. "I'll drop him off everything related to terrestrial digital broadcasting. I'll never forgive him." ·