Ken Watanabe - Personal Life

Personal Life

In 1983 Watanabe married his first wife, Yumiko. In March of 2005, following two years of arbitration, he and Yumiko were divorced. He got to know Kaho Minami when they were acting together in a suspense drama for TV Tokyo. Around the time of his divorce the two began seriously dating, and were married on December 3 of the same year. The couple's relationship was initially kept out of the mass media. It wasn't until an "unidentified guest" accompanying Watanabe at a New York premiere of his film Sayuri seen in an Associated Press photo was found to be Minami that their marriage was publicly announced.

Watanabe formally adopted Minami's son from her previous marriage to director Hitonari Tsuji, and for a time the three of them lived in Los Angeles. In order to increase the amount of time the family could spend together, considering Ken's work requiring him to travel so much, they later returned to Japan. Initially Minami and Ken did not hold any wedding ceremony, but in 2010, marking their fifth anniversary, they announced that they had held a ceremony in Los Angeles.

Watanabe has two biological children and an adopted son. His oldest son, Dai Watanabe (born 1984) is an actor, and his daughter Anne Watanabe (born 1986) is also an actress and fashion model. In August 2008, Dai had his first child, making Ken a grandfather at the age of 48.

In 1989 Watanabe was diagnosed with bone marrow leukemia, but he later recovered.

In 2006 Watanabe revealed in his autobiography Dare? - Who Am I? that he has hepatitis C. At a press conference held 23 May 2006 in Tokyo's Ginza district, he said he was in good condition but was still undergoing treatment.

On March 13, 2011, he launched a YouTube page to raise awareness about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and invited celebrities to add their videos. In his video in English, he made a call to action to support the victims and to raise funds in the relief effort. In conjunction, he has created his own website for the cause.