Actor Eri Watanabe and her ex-husband, actor Ryota Tsuchiya, appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on December 9th. They talked about the reasons for their divorce.
Tsuchiya was 28 and Watanabe was 40 when they got married, and they were married for 23 years before divorcing five years ago. Tsuchiya explained that the reason for this was that he had been financially dependent on her since they got married in their 20s, and that "I think he had a strong desire for her to become independent after she turned 50," and added, "I think the strongest feeling he had for Eri was that she (Tsuchiya) would never be able to become independent if she stayed in a financially stable position as a celebrity for too long."
Watanabe praised Tsuchiya, saying, "You've been much more active on stage since we broke up, and you've been playing a lot of interesting roles," to which Tsuchiya replied, "Even after we broke up, you still came to see every play I was in, so in that sense you could say you're a really warm-hearted leader."
