Okada Nana said in an interview that she is non-binary and her thoughts on her 2022 scandal

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Okada Nana was one of the most popular members of AKB48 but it all came crashing down after she was seen holding hands with a fellow actor and was revealed to be in a relationship while member of AKB48.

The unwritten rule of no love when one is an idol has been said time over time for AKB48 members, and many having seen their careers tarnished because of it.

For Okada Nana, there was a huge uproar in Japan and also overseas. So bad that she was called a “traitor” and for her to “die” on social media.

In an interview with Aera.dot, Okada tells the publication, “I was mentally damaged, couldn’t eat food, and lost weight. It was a difficult time. I had both the feeling of wanting to apologize for my lack of self-awareness and lack of self-awareness as an idol, and the feeling of wondering, ‘Why don’t we just fall in love normally?'”.

Not long after the scandal and online bashing, Okada graduated from AKB48.

Another point of contention was that many believed Okada was a lesbian but was seen with a man which led to some fans being disappointed. Okada wrote on a post back on November 23rd, 2022, “At the time I gave the speech, I considered myself a lesbian, and I had always been in love with women. Therefore, I have been betraying my fans for a long time. To be honest, I wondered why I had to receive so much criticism just because my partner was a man”.

Okada said in the Aera.dot interview that she is “non-binary” and said, “When I was little, there was a time when I liked boys, and I even gave them chocolates on Valentine’s Day. That changed after I joined the group. Around the time of the 2017 general election, I was a lesbian. I fell in love with a woman who supported me from the bottom of my heart and started dating her. At that time, I never imagined that I would ever fall in love with a man. I now think that the speech he made in 2017 was uttered out of a sense of being within a safe zone, as if I were immune to scandals between men and women. And that was a big mistake. Love between men and women and love between women should have the same weight. I was 19 years old at the time, and I regret that I didn’t understand many things and was thinking within a narrow world”.

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