Ayumi Hamasaki to divorce husband of 1 year

Ayumi HamasakiIMAGE.NET

TOKYO —

Pop diva Ayumi Hamasaki, 33, has announced through her official fan club that she is to divorce Austrian actor Manuel Schwarz, 31. The couple who were wed in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day of 2011, are to file for a divorce after a year of marriage.

Hamasaki told fans that she had initiated the split, explaining that she felt unable to keep the promise she made to Schwarz, who lives in Los Angeles, that the pair would live together in America. “Since the Tohoku disaster, I have had the feeling that I don’t want to be apart from Japan,” she wrote. “As a result I have been spending more and more days away from him.”

“We spoke about this and we thought we could maintain our relationship by traveling to see each other, but at some point, physical distance becomes emotional distance,” she explained. “When I thought about our future, I realized I couldn’t see myself returning to the state of mind I was in when I agreed to live in America.”

It is reported that Hamasaki will file for divorce through a lawyer in the United States.

Japan Today

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