Johnny Kitagawa
The group was surrounded by controversy in June 2011 after photos of Ryutaro Morimoto smoking while underage were leaked. When he was asked about the photos, he said "it was alright" and that it was "no big deal". In response to the scandal, Johnny's Entertainment issued a statement of apology the following day and planned to indefinitely suspend Morimoto from all of his activities. Following the removal of Morimoto's profile from the official Johnny &amp; Associates website, Johnny Kitagawa stated that Morimoto had ambitions to focus on studying and denied any possibility of his returning to the group.