This story broke at the end of last year and we sat on it for a few days to see if there were any further developments.
A minor scandal has emerged involving top Nogizaka46 member Yuki Yoda, after the tabloid magazine Weekly Bunshun caught her going to a luxury gym in Ebisu, Tokyo, in which she was allegedly in a room alone with a male trainer for several hours.
The 22-year-old, who joined the idol group in 2016 but came firmly onto our radar when she released her hit photo book in 2020, apparently attends the gym twice a week and has the same male trainer for her sessions.
As noted in its article published online on December 27, Bunshun’s hard-working journos observed Yoda enter the gym at 8:30 pm on December 15, when only the male trainer was there and some of the lights were turned off. The gym door said “closed” when she entered. Had he kept it open just for her? Or had he closed the gym to give them privacy?
An hour after Yoda arrived, an Uber Eats delivery man was seen bringing food to the gym, which the trainer collected. The “training session” that night lasted six hours.
Yoda’s agency responded that the session had lasted two hours, followed by an end-of-year party where the pair ate and watched TV.
Bunshun, however, claims Yoda met the trainer at least seven times in December. On December 4, they dined together at a restaurant and eventually went to two further eating and drinking establishments. The trainer is said to be married with a child.
Yoda also published a statement on the Nogizaka46 denying any romantic relationship between herself and the trainer, whose other celebrity female clients reportedly include the actress Marika Matsumoto. So far, the fallout from what could be a potentially career-derailing scandal (à la Nana Okada in November) has been small.
