Ayu, her problematic relationship with Max and how she is public about it

[MiiSan]

Honestly this is more like a bit of an "off my chest" thread and maybe other fans feel the same, plus I kinda consider a bit of an important subject that deserve its own thread rather than being buried deep in the discord chats and never to be found again.

A bit of context before; in recent years especially I have become super aware of the misogyny that is rampant in the music industry and generally in the celebrity culture (and everywhere else in the world but that's a subject for another time), with Britney's conservatorship being exposed, being sl*t shamed and being extremely criticized in her late teens and early 20s, despite what she was doing was typical of that age, herself describing how she was treated as a villain compared to Justin back in the early 2000s, being Justin again getting off Scott free after the Janet incident then she was blacklisted by the industry, Mariah Carey being looked as "crazy" back in her Glitter era and so.

I am a huge pop fan since those days (I was a kid back then) and always looked up to female pop stars generally, accepting my femininity and my sexual orientation, and hearing how ridden with the exact opposite the industry has seems to be, just breaks my heart and made me really skeptical of how women generally are treated in it. This includes Ayu and avex generally.

Ayu is someone who had a huge impact on me while growing up and finding my identity, probably like a lot of of people here, how she broke the barrier with the Japanese culture by how outspoken she is about stuff like mental health, feminism and LGBT rights in a country that generally frowns upon these things being discussed openly and basically watching her, listening to her music and her lyrics I basically got more and more comfortable in my own skin and being outspoken myself thanks to her and many more celebrities her era and for that I am greatful for her that I got this positive influence. I still love Ayu and follow her releases.

Now to the "off my chest" part, since Ayu revealed that in her early days she was in relationship with the CEO of avex, Max Matsuura, and how she is still very much is close to him to this day, making it really obvious throughout her social media and how she proudly plasters their closeness as recently as the livestream this year and them going out on a drink in a video posted publicly on his channel, I can't lie, all this leaves me a bit of sour taste. Max has a bit of a slimy history and was made kinda evident when back in June 2022 had that livestream where he basically rates the looks of 35+ year old Japanese celebs basically using "old, married and ugly" as an insult and I believe that got traction in articles and media so much that he had to issue a (non) apology.

So it's a little bit conflicting to me personally as a fan that followed Ayu closely since 2006, she sings about empowerment in women, yet, with all of Max's misogynistic comments out in public (and himself still standing by them) I can't help but feel kinda disappointed by her strong public association and how she shows him in a positive light to this day. I feel like if this was in the west or on Twitter, she would get massive backlash just by that, not that it's right to outright cancel someone by the way, you always have to look at things with nuance and rationality, just that my point is that the cancelling would surely happen in this day and age if Ayu was American/international.

On the other side, I do sympathize with Ayu, she most likely herself is a victim of the industry and Max being her boss she probably cannot really say anything, not to mention how much Max helped her to become the celebrity she is today by promoting her constantly and she might know herself that she's in a difficult position with him, especially that she knows him since she was a teenager which can cloud her judgement. I think my issue is just that their closeness is made public by both of them on their respective platforms and can unintentionally show that she has no problem with Max generally being horrible, kinda making Ayu's messages in music pretty null. If they kept their relationship on the down low, it would be fine in my opinion, since they're employees anyway.

Or maybe she is held at gunpoint by buff guards in the avex cell to do exactly these or else. Anything can happen lol


TLDR version: I feel uncomfortable that Ayu is endorsing Max Matsuura publicly despite Max overall being a horrible person.