Former HKT48 member Haruka Kodama, now an actor and TV personality, said she spent more than ¥10 million on cosmetic surgery after comparing herself with more popular group members, The Television reported.
Kodama made the comments on Re:MAKE, a self-documentary program on the streaming service ABEMA in which guests face photographs from turning points in their lives and address their past selves. She also described being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 20.
"I could not love myself"
Kodama auditioned for HKT48's first-generation intake in her third year of junior high school on her father's recommendation. After passing, she was chosen as the center — the performer placed at the front of the formation — for the group's first show.
She said she felt pressure rather than joy. "I knew better than anyone that I was the one who could do the least, so the feeling of 'I'm sorry' won out," she said. She was sometimes called the "unpopular center," and she said she lost confidence in her singing, her dancing and her looks.
At handshake events — meet-and-greet sessions where fans queue for a few moments with a member — she compared her line with those of the popular members. "I kept tormenting myself, thinking I had to become popular even a little," she said.
She began cosmetic surgery at 18. "I could never accept myself, and I kept working without being able to love myself, so the feelings of inferiority were never filled," she said. "When I stood next to the other members, I looked so inferior to them, so I started cosmetic surgery."
After her first procedure, a suture method for double eyelids, she thought: "If a complex can be cleared up in such a short time, that's incredibly good." She said she never counted the procedures, but that they cost more than ¥10 million.
She repeatedly had hyaluronic acid injected into her nose. "I'm scared if it's not in my nose," she said, describing the period as "like a hyaluronic acid addiction."
People around her called her a "surgery monster." Concerned staff and fellow members told her, "Haruppi, you should dissolve that nose." She said she had convinced herself she was not pretty without it, and that at the time it was a talisman.
Diagnosed at 20
While continuing as a central member of HKT48, Kodama began to feel unwell. "Songs and dances I had always been able to do suddenly became impossible," she said. She described breaking down in tears like a baby and crouching on the floor a minute before a concert was due to start.
She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 20. She said she was driven to think she might never return to society, and that a doctor told her that if depression were severe at her level, the chance of returning to her former energetic self was 10%.
She worried that stopping would trouble everyone and that she would lose her place. She went on hiatus in February 2017. She returned once, then suspended activity again at the end of that year and recuperated at her family home in Fukuoka.
"From the moment I woke up, this huge feeling of apology would swell up, and there were many days when I could not stop crying," she said. Her mother, she said, would hold her and tell her, "I'll protect you, Haruka."
Her mother's message and her father's letter
Her mother appeared on the program in a video letter. When Kodama consulted her about cosmetic surgery, she told her daughter she was fine as she was, but ultimately respected her wishes because it might lighten her heart.
During Kodama's recuperation, her mother said, lights, cameras and phones were all off limits, along with anything that made her daughter feel watched. "I could never give up on my daughter, so as long as she was alive, that was enough," she said. "I was sure she would get better."
A letter from her father, who was working away from the family, was also read out. He said he had not realized his daughter was suffering behind her glamorous idol work. "Why couldn't I have noticed sooner, why couldn't I have listened more? That feeling still remains somewhere in my heart," he wrote.
"You don't have to try so hard. You don't have to carry it alone," he told her. "In good times and in pain, your father is always on your side."
Kodama wept as she thanked her parents, saying she was glad to be their daughter. To her past self she said: "I'm spending every day with a smile, and I'm very happy now. Thank you for getting through the darkness where there was no hope."