Japanese chef based in France Taku Sekine has died at the age of 39, his family said on Tuesday, according to which he ended his life after being the victim of "false gossip on social networks".
In a statement posted on Twitter, the chef's family announces that they have "the immense pain of having to announce the disappearance of Taku Sekine", chef of the Dersou restaurants, opened at the end of 2014 in the Bastille district in Paris and awarded the prize of the “Best table 2016” by the Fooding guide, and Cheval d'Or, also located in the east of the French capital.
The chef, who had been trained by Alain Ducasse, one of the great names in French cuisine, before joining the Parisian palace Plaza Athénée, then the famous chef Hélène Darroze, "put an end to his life, carried away by a serious depression following its public implication - on social networks and on a specialized site -, with a recurrence resembling a real relentlessness ”, continues this text.
No substantive investigation, no complaint
While he "has never been prosecuted or been the subject of any complaint," said the statement from his family, Taku Sekine "locked himself in the space of two months in a violent spiral of depression" after being the object of "lying gossip".
A rumor linked him to accusations of sexual assault, according to sources within the industry.
"At the end of August, the restaurant info site Atabula echoed an ongoing journalistic investigation on the subject, referring to a
famous Parisian chef
", reports the magazine Vanity Fair in its French edition.
“A few weeks later, Atabula threw his name in the grazing ground, without any substantive investigation having been published or a complaint filed:
Following the ongoing and future sexual assault and rape complaints against Taku Sekine, the chief would have taken flight in Japan,
"continued the magazine, indicating that the chief had" immediately denied "this information to his editorial staff.
