Photo/Illutration Naomi Watanabe, left, takes part in an event in May 2019 to demonstrate how to apply to purchase Tokyo Olympic event tickets. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Popular celebrity Naomi Watanabe dished out more details on an incident that led to the resignation of the Tokyo Olympic creative director and sparked international disbelief at the insensitive nature of what he had planned.

Hiroshi Sasaki, the 66-year-old chief creative director of both the Opening and Closing ceremonies, was found to have suggested in March last year that Watanabe dress up like a pig for an Olympic ceremony performance. Sasaki resigned from his post on March 18.

Watanabe appeared on March 19 in a video streamed live on YouTube and said she would have rejected Sasaki’s initial plan if it had been presented to her.

“I believe I would have criticized the plan,” Watanabe said. “I would have said then ‘This is not interesting and I have no idea what the intent is. What is the need to use a pig in that situation?’”

Watanabe also said that she did not want people overseas to think that “this is everything to know about Japan.”

She also obliquely referred to another proposal she received for the Opening Ceremony put together by a team that included the choreographer Mikiko.

When she was asked toward the end of 2019 to participate in the Opening Ceremony as a performer, Watanabe said she immediately accepted.

A month or two later, she met with the creative team and heard their plan for her segment.

“When I heard it, I got goose bumps,” Watanabe recalled. “It was so awesome, I asked them, ‘Is it really all right for me to take part in this?’”

Because of her own highly positive appraisal of the plan by the creative team, she was at first surprised at the recent media reports about what Sasaki had proposed.

But Watanabe added that one saving point of the whole incident is that some people stood up to Sasaki and said his proposal was way out of line.

The initial plan that Watanabe heard never got off the table because the Tokyo Olympics was postponed to July of this year.

She said her greatest regret was not being able to show the world what the plan put together by Mikiko’s team was like.

Watanabe also called on everyone to not be swayed by what others said about one’s appearance.

“I will decide what color to make my hair, what clothes to wear and my physical appearance,” Watanabe said. “What I wanted to pass on is that I decide for myself and I want others to decide for themselves.”

She also expressed concerns about those people who might be hurt by the latest reports.

“I pray that no further reports emerge about this issue because I worry about the people who might be hurt,” she said. “I just hope everyone will really take care of themselves.”

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