Ai Ijima: Ex Japanese Porn Death (1972-2008)

FORMER Japanese porn actress Ai Iijima, who was found dead at her home last week, could have been driven to her death, according to former Indonesian first lady Dewi Sukarno.

'She had encountered something terrible...Some person or persons had taken pictures and videos of her and had used those things to blackmail her. This person or persons kept dogging her with the threats,' Ms Dewi, 68, wrote in her blog.

She did not elaborate on the nature of the videos but said she was saddened by the death of her good friend.

'She could not discuss her problems with anyone.

'There was no one to rescue her from her worries,' Ms Dewi wrote in a blog entry dated Dec 25.

Ms Dewi, now a TV celebrity in Japan, once appeared on the same television talk show as Ms Iijima.

Police sources told Kyodo News that Ms Iijima, 36, had been dead for about a week before her body was found last Wednesday at her condominium in downtown Shibuya.

An autopsy conducted last Thursday failed to determine the cause of death, sources said.

Ms Iijima retired from showbiz in March last year, citing deteriorating health.

'It is impossible to survive (the entertainment industry) if I cannot find out my goal and dream, and cannot keep trying,' she was quoted as saying by Japanese media.

Her father refused to comment further on her death and told reporters her funeral would be a private one.

Ms Iijima, who was also known in the rest of Asia, gained popularity at home as a straight-talking character since her debut on television variety shows in the 1990s.

She began an Aids awareness campaign around the time she published the autobiographical Platonic Sex in 2000, describing her younger days as a porn actress and club hostess.

The book has sold some two million copies and been made into a movie and a television drama, reported AFP.

Ms Dewi, whose real name is Naoko Nemoto, married Indonesia's founding president Sukarno in 1962. Since his fall in 1965 and his death in 1970, she has lived in Tokyo and New York.

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