ADDS RESTRICTION: ONE TIME USE ONLY, EDITORIAL USE ONLY – IOC President Thomas Bach, right, meets with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, second from left, during a welcome party for Bach and IOC officials at Akasaka Palace, Japanese state guest house, in Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, July 18, 2021.
Japanese composer Keigo Oyamada is seen in this Oct. 2006, photo. Oyamada, a Japanese composer working on the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, resigned on Monday, July 19, 2021, after coming under fire for bullying a classmate during his childhood.
TOKYO (AP) — Keigo Oyamada, a Japanese composer working on the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, resigned on Monday after coming under fire for bullying classmates during his childhood.
“I sincerely accept the opinions and advice I have received, express my gratitude, and will keep them in mind for my future actions and thoughts,” he said on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.
“I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”
Reports of his past abuse of classmates, including those with disabilities, surfaced online recently and sparked a backlash on social media plus demands for his resignation.
The Tokyo Games organizers said on Sunday that he would stay on because he had shown remorse.
Oyamada, 52, also known as Cornelius, apologized online last week.
Some critics had said he should hold a news conference and apologize in person. Others questioned why he hadn’t apologized earlier.
Oyamada, whose works have been compared to the American rock musician Beck, talked about the abuse in Japanese magazine interviews he gave in the 1990s.
In a statement on Sunday, Atsuko Kubo, head of an association of families of the mentally disabled, “strongly protested” against Oyamada’s past actions and said it was disturbing he had targeted the disabled, who were less likely to fight back and that he still bragged about it years later.
