Tokyo: The director of the opening ceremony for the Tokyo Summer Olympics has been dismissed after footage from a 1998 comedy sketch showed him making an antisemitic Holocaust joke.
Kentaro Kobayashi was relieved of his duties just one day before the opening ceremony for the Summer Games is set to take place in Japan.
“It came to light that during a past performance, (he) used language that mocked a tragic fact of history,” Tokyo 2020 Olympic chief Seiko Hashimoto told reporters. “The organising committee has decided to relieve Kobayashi of his post,” she added. In the sketch, Kobayashi and a comedy partner pretend to be a pair of famous children’s TV entertainers.
Comments are closed.