Former AKB48 idol group member and TV personality Kayo Noro made her first appearance on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on May 27th. She talked about two "tricks" she used to pass the AKB48 audition.
Noro had dreamed of becoming an actress since childhood. She continued to send in applications to auditions in search of an opportunity to debut, but was unsuccessful. She finally passed the AKB48 audition, which she approached thinking it would be her last chance.
When Tetsuko asked Noro, "Did you lie about a lot of things (during the audition)?", Noro readily admitted. "I wrote my age as about two years younger on my resume," she confessed. She added, "I was a little chubby (at the time), so I stretched the photo vertically to make myself look thinner before sending it in," revealing that she had lied about two things on her resume.
The final selection was in person. "At the selection venue, it was like, 'Who invited this person?' (laughs). Well, I did look different from the photos I sent... But they thought it would be interesting to see a girl like that become beautiful and successful, so I barely passed," she recalled.
About a week before my debut, I had a meeting with producer Yasushi Akimoto. It was there that I revealed my true age for the first time, and Mr. Akimoto said, "That's interesting," and I was able to debut without any problems.
Tetsuko-san told Noro-san, "If it's only two, that's fine. In our time, everyone just bluffed." Noro-san smiled and said, "That's the first time someone has said that to me. I'm very happy right now."
