Actress Misa Hayashi highlights abuse issues in the entertainment industry
Retiring actress Misa Hayashi has complained that the mainstream media is ignoring the open secret that is casting in the entertainment industry.
In an interview with Daily Shincho, Hayashi recounts how he was told to sleep with other people when his DVD sales were low. This was when she was working as a gravure idol in her early twenties.
Actress Misa Hayashi highlights abuse issues in the entertainment industry
The casting couch, pressure to sleep with influential people to get ahead in the industry, is something of an open secret in the worlds of printmaking, modeling, voice acting, and musical idols.
In the 2010s, before getting married, Kobayashi was linked to Ohta Production, a large talent agency. When she was younger, she says, she was approached by a self-proclaimed producer who said she could appear on a TV show if she slept with him. “All the popular gravure idols slept with me,” she boasted.
She reveals that he clearly targeted young women who wanted to be famous at all costs. Choosing an agency really impacts her career, she says, because of the people around her. Fortunately for her, Ohta Production had no predators like the producer she describes.
In Japan, it is known as makura egyo (literally pillow business). Certain entrepreneurs and producers will even approach young, impressionable women trying to make a name for themselves in the industry with the offer of help if they sleep with them.
Now 33 years old, actress Misa Hayashi appeared in a theater play in Shinjuku, in which she played the lead role. It was her last official role as an actress. In the past, she has made prints and released 7 DVDs of images.
Another exploitative aspect of the industry is that some management agencies charge fees for training their idols. In the end, Hayashi had to pay to join an agency through his training program.
And agencies also don’t always pay their talent adequately, or at all. In the interview, Hayashi complains about how her previous management agency didn’t pay her anything for her DVDs. She had to earn money by working in restaurants at night or borrowing money from her boyfriend.
And when her DVDs stopped being sold, she was told to sleep with the president of a certain company to prevent her career from failing.
via Você Sabia Anime
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