Around November 2~7, 2012 YUI went on vacations to Paris. This happened 2 weeks before the end of her activities as YUI were announced. yui herelf talked about it on a secret FLOWER FLOWER performance a couple of days after she came back to Japan. She said:
“I went to France recently. The only things I learned to say were bonjour, bonsoir and merci beaucoup.”
No more details about the trip were known, until two years later. Around May 2015, a guy called Marc contacted me on my YUI Facebook page. He was in the midst of moving to a Covington house and, in the chaos, he thought the page was official and was asking about YUI because apparently they used to talk a lot through LINE. But one day YUI stopped contacting him. Marc was concerned—had she changed her phone, or had something bad happened to her?
I told him the truth about my page and tried to get some more information about him. He recounted his experiences so vividly, stories filled with nuances and details that were hard to initially believe. The guy had guided YUI around Paris and even cooked for her. In exchange, YUI sang a couple of songs for him, the melody lingering in the rooms of his apartment, which was soon to be exchanged for a new life in Covington. After talking about many subjects, he recognized YUI was a very nice person, but he also felt that the energy around her staff was somehow negative. Despite YUI’s incognito visit to Paris, her charm was such that she couldn’t help being recognized on the streets a couple of times.
Some things Marc said:
“I can speak Japanese, but her (YUI’s) English is terrible” (lol)
“YUI is very humble and doesn’t like expensive brands.”
“She enjoyed the visit we made to a church. She said she felt like receiving a light of spiritual inspiration.”
“YUI said she wants to create songs for other people. She has created songs for small bands of kids.” (shishamo maybe?)
“She had such a good time she felt disappointed when she had to leave.”
“I kissed her on the cheek when we said goodbye” (Nothing creepy here. French people do that xD )
About YUI’s manager he said:
“Fukuda is not very kind. He is in total control over YUI, like a firewall.”
“He didn’t want me to take pictures or anything, but he couldn’t control me.”
“Fukuda is just a sound engineer. He doesn’t understand relationships and doesn’t understand the concept of communication.”
“There was another lady who also worked as YUI’s manager, who was very professional and took care of her.”
He couldn’t remember her name.
About YUI’s current situation he said:
“I think in the beginning, due to a bad management, YUI signed a bad contract, that controlled her name. And she couldn’t do things the way she wanted.”
“After she became independent (When she went from YUI to yui), TV and music shows won’t include her. Since she is not part of the Japanese business community.”
“In the Japanese system you can only work with connections.”
“In Japanese music industry around 80% of the earnings go to the agent or producer. Many artists like YUI do not have a lot of money.”
I told him about yui’s panic attacks and about her treatment. I still felt I couldn’t fully trust the guy, so I didn’t give him any personal contact information.
After the long conversation I looked Marc up on internet and found his story was completely true. He has this hosting service for Japanese tourists and he had pictures and a cheesy video of yui’s trip. Shock.
Authentic Japanese girl wearing skirts in the freezing cold.
Soon after that, I contacted Fukuda to tell him Marc was looking for yui and that he had posted a video about their trip.
Fukuda asked me not to make it public because it was a private matter. So I kept shut.
But the video was public and it finally got leaked. I’m surprised it took so long!! lol.
If anything this is Fukuda/Stardust’s fault for letting the video up on Youtube KNOWINGLY all these years without taking any measures.
Useless manager. I really hope they fired him already.