Utada Hikaru’s mother speaks to the press about the drug money scandal
Entertainment News from Japan has reported that Utada Hikaru’s mother gave an interview with Japanese press about her drug money incident:
Singer Fuji Keiko (55, real name Utada Junko) returned briefly to Japan to give FTV an exclusive interview, which aired last night, in an effort to clear her name following some recent bad press. The mother of pop princess Utada Hikaru (23) was found with a huge amount of cash at an airport in New York back in the spring. Authorities, suspecting the $420,000 in cash had links to drugs, decided to confiscate it and have yet to return it. Reports on the incident, revealed on the U.S. website The Smoking Gun, said sniffer dogs had detected drug traces and that Fuji was described as acting strangely. The report said she claimed that she planned to donate the money to an orphanage in Las Vegas. In last night’s interview, conducted in the back of a car, she made no mention of that plan. She said it was normal for her to carry that kind of cash, particularly when visiting Vegas, where she is a regular guest at the Wynn hotel. By way of explanation, she showed her passport to the camera, revealing a jet-set lifestyle that has seen her visit dozens of countries over the last few years. She claims to have spent something like ¥500 million in the last five years. As an executive in her daughter’s management company, she is thought to have earned about ¥170 million last year. Fuji was a very successful singer back in the 1970s before suddenly giving it all up and moving to the U.S. in 1979.
From that description, it sounds like the FTV interviewer was really easy on her: Because she has visited dozens of countries over the last few years, she is entitled to carry huge undeclared sums of cash in her luggage? Who’s to say that she wasn’t smuggling drug money to all those countries? I don’t actually believe that she is involved in the drug trade, but the media needs to treat her like the idiot her actions have clearly demonstrated her to be.
