Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has admitted she felt “a little lonely” after staff exterminated a cockroach she had been tolerating in her official residence.
The 63-year-old conservative leader made the bizarre confession in a series of candid late-night posts on X this week, using the personal anecdote to defend her habit of working long, solitary hours from the historic Tokyo residence known locally as the kotei. While previous Japanese prime ministers have famously avoided the 1920s brick mansion over rumors it is haunted by victims of deadly 1930s coup attempts, Takaichi noted that ghosts were the least of her concerns.
“I’ve never seen a ghost, but I scream when I see a cockroach,” Takaichi wrote, admitting she was startled when an insect darted across her feet.
Rather than killing the pest, however, Takaichi explained that she intentionally allowed it to roam the residence. She revealed that her reverence for living creatures—strongly shaped by reading legendary manga artist Osamu Tezuka’s classic work Phoenix—made her reluctant to take any insect’s life.
“Maybe because of that, even now as an adult, I can’t bring myself to kill insects, cockroaches included,” she wrote. “Maybe this life is also part of that long cycle of reincarnation.”
Her staff, however, did not share her philosophical mercy. After noticing her surprise around the residence, her secretary took executive action and discreetly arranged for pest control treatments.
“For a while, I endured it, hoping it would somehow leave on its own—but when I told my secretaries about it, they were appalled,” Takaichi wrote. “‘It’s unclean. I’ll handle it,’ one of the secretaries said firmly, and arranged for Operation Combat.”
Once the extermination took effect and the insects vanished, the leader admitted she had mixed feelings about the sudden silence in the vast mansion.
“I was relieved, but somehow I felt a little lonely after the staff removed the cockroach,” she admitted.
In the viral moment that has since circulated across international news platforms, Takaichi’s unusual candor about her eight-legged roommate struck a chord with readers worldwide, sparking widespread discussion on social media and in outlets from Ground News to The Straits Times. While some found her musings endearing, critics questioned whether a world leader should be waxing poetic about residence pests amid serious domestic policy debates.
Regardless of the political chatter, Takaichi made clear that her official residence is now bug-free, even if she misses the company.