Kago Ai talks about her past about smoking and her troubled year as a Morning Musume member

In 2000, Kago Ai became a 4th generation Morning Musume member and with the group and subunit of Minimoni was one of the most popular members.

She and Tsuji Nozomi would graduate in 2004 and would form a new unit known as W.

But in 2006, things went south for Kago when “Friday” published photos of the then 15-year-old smoking.    W’s activities were suspended indefinitely and she was put on a probation where she had to stay in house arrest at her family’s home in Nara and was not allowed to have any contact with Tsuji or any members from her agency, Up-Front Works.  She was caught smoking again during her probation period.

In 2007, while working on her comeback, photos of Kago with an older man going to an onsen and smoking again would eventually lead to her dismissal from Up-Front Works.

In a YouTube video, Kago talked about that troubled time and said, since an early age, she thought women who smoked looked cool and so she longed for cigarettes.  She wanted to have a husky voice.

In 2006, during that troubled time, Kago talked about how she lost so much weight and was 35 kg (77 pounds) and that she had a feeling that she didn’t like anything anymore.

As for the situation in 2007, the man she was with was someone she consulted her and how she was becoming impatient (as she was on probation) and knew how dangerous things were becoming at the time.

But when she was dismissed by the agency, she couldn’t understand what “dismissal” meant and the manager had to explain to her.

She remembers crying a lot during that day but she had to stop and not cry forever and accept that she did this to herself and it was her fault.

To avoid the uproar in Japan, she moved to Los Angeles and met the actress Winona Ryder.  She married a corporate man in 2011 and gave birth to her eldest daughter in 2012 but divorced in June 2015 due to domestic violence.  In August 2016, she remarried a beauty company owner.

In 2018, she was given the opportunity to perform at the 20th Anniversary of Hello! Project and confessed that “Finally, I’m so grateful, things are going alright”.

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