Japanese pop music producer Tetsuya Komuro said Friday he will quit his music career after a weekly magazine reported his extramarital affair with a nurse.
Komuro, 59, who produced many million-seller songs for top Japanese pop singers including Namie Amuro, said he is retiring a day after the Shukan Bunshun weekly reported that he had an affair with a female nurse while his wife was struggling with the after-effects of a stroke.
The producer said he decided to quit to "take the blame" for the scandal, which has "worried my family and fans and caused trouble" to the nurse. He also offered an apology at a press conference.
The magazine said Komuro had dalliances with the nurse at a Tokyo hotel and at each other's homes in December and early January.
The producer rose to prominence in 1984 as a member of the TM Network trio. In the 1990s, he became one of Japan's most successful music producers, songwriters, composers and arrangers.
His wife Keiko, 45, is lead singer of the three-member band Globe in which Komuro variously played guitar, piano and synthesizer. Keiko suffered a stroke in 2011.
In 2009, Komuro was found guilty of swindling an investor out of 500 million yen ($4.5 million) by attempting to sell the copyright to songs he no longer owned. He resumed his music activities in 2010.
