Japan’s Princess Mako marries commoner, loses royal status

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Japan’s Princess Mako has married her commoner boyfriend – giving up her royal title for the sake of love in a move that has sharply divided public opinion. 

The 30-year-old tied the knot with university sweetheart Kei Komuro in Tokyo on Tuesday after an eight-year engagement in a ceremony without royal pomp and grandeur that was held away from cameras.

Formerly the Princess of Akishino, she has now taken her husband’s name and will go by Mako Komuro – the first time in her life that she has had a surname.

Mako was pictured leaving her family’s residence at Akasaka Estate early Tuesday, bowing to father Crown Prince Akishino and mother Crown Princess Kiko before sharing a hug with sister Princess Kako.

She then went alone by car to marry Kei in a ceremony that took place at a family registry away from cameras. 

Afterward, the newlyweds held a press conference in a somberly-decorated hotel function room which they paid for – where they apologised for any distress that their union has caused. It marked the first time in four years they have been pictured together.

Reading out a prepared statement, Mako defended her decision to marry while describing Kei as ‘irreplaceable’ and adding that ‘our marriage is a necessary step for us to be able to protect our hearts.’

She also criticised news reports written during their engagement which she accused of spreading false information and ‘one-sided rumours’, which she said had left her ‘feeling sadness and pain.’ 

The royal household previously revealed she is suffering PTSD. 

Kei also apologised but said that he loved Mako and would support her throughout their life together.

‘I love Mako. We only get one life, and I want us to spend it with the one we love,’ he said. ‘I feel very sad that Mako has been in a bad condition, mentally and physically, because of the false accusations.’

The couple did not answer questions to make the experience easier for Mako, but did issue a page of written responses to five pre-selected questions. One asked about Mako’s condition, to which she responded: ‘Not good’. 

The couple were due to get married three years ago, but the wedding was delayed following a financial scandal involving an unpaid debt owed by Kei’s mother and suggestions he was marrying for money.

In the wake of the scandal, he moved to the US to study law and recently graduated from Fordham University in New York, where he now works for a law firm. 

He returned to Tokyo last month before it was announced that the pair would finally wed.

As part of the announcement, the royal household said Mako would forgo all traditional ceremonies and surrender a £1million payment she was entitled to according to Japanese tradition.

The pair are now expected to move to the US to start a new life together.  

Mako, who turned 30 three days before the wedding, is a niece of Emperor Naruhito. Her father is the Crown Prince and is expected to inherit the throne because Naruhito has only one child – a daughter – and his wife, 57-year-old Empress Masako, is unlikely to have another.

Japan’s strict laws of succession forbid women from ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne and force them to give up their titles if they marry commoners.

Mako and Komuro met at Tokyo’s International Christian University in 2013 and got engaged in secret, before announcing their intention to marry in September 2017. 

But the financial dispute surfaced two months later and the wedding was suspended.

The dispute involves whether money his mother received from her former fiancé was a loan or a gift. Mako´s father asked Komuro to clarify, and he wrote a statement defending himself, but it is still unclear if the dispute has been fully resolved.

Komuro, 30, left for New York in 2018 to study law and only returned to Japan last month. His hair, tied in a ponytail, captured attention as a bold statement for someone marrying a princess in the tradition-bound imperial family and only added to the criticism.

Mako has also declined the 140 million yen ($1.23 million) dowry to which she was entitled for leaving the imperial family, palace officials said. She is the first imperial family member since World War II to not receive the payment while marrying a commoner and chose to do so because of the criticism over her marrying a man some consider unfit for the princess.

On Tuesday morning, she left the palace wearing a pale blue dress and holding a bouquet. She bowed outside the residence of her parents, Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, and her sister Kako, and then the sisters hugged each other.

The Imperial House Law allows only male succession and requires women to renounce their royal status when they marry a commoner, a practice that has reduced the number of royal family members and the successors to the throne.

After Naruhito, there are only Akishino and his son, Prince Hisahito, in the line of succession. A panel of government-appointed experts are discussing a stable succession of the Japanese monarchy, but conservatives still reject female succession or allowing female members to head the imperial family.