The composer of music for the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies resigned on Monday after acknowledging that as a student he had bullied his disabled classmates. Keigo Oyamada, 52, who uses the stage name Cornelius, announced on Twitter that he had handed in his resignation to the Tokyo organizing committee just four days before he was to oversee music for the opening ceremony. Shortly after the announcement, parts of interviews he had given in the 1990s to a Japanese magazine, in which he described how he had abused classmates years earlier, surfaced on social media. The interviews quoted Mr. Oyamada saying that he had taunted children with Down syndrome, stripped classmates naked and forced them to masturbate. With pressure building and a petition calling for his resignation, Mr. Oyamada said he had grown “keenly aware that I lacked consideration of many people when I accepted the offer to participate” in the Olympic ceremonies.

Source: New York Times July 19, 2021 15:45 UTC