TODAY IN HISTORY: Japanese man spent 15 months alone and naked, not realising he had become an enormous star
A Japanese comedian who spent 15 months living in complete isolation found out he was unwittingly a reality TV star on March 28, 1999.
For more than a year Tomoaki Hamatsu lived by himself in an apartment without access to food, clothing or any outside communication or broadcasting.
He was given a pile of sweepstakes contests to enter, and told he would have to sustain himself on his winnings.
As a result he had to survive on raw rice, and then dog food.
He also won a bicycle which he had no space to ride in, a Playstation game he couldn't play and tickets to a movie he couldn't watch.
Hamatsu believed the experience would be filmed and broadcast when the challenge was over.
Unbeknownst to him, he was being livestreamed on the internet 24/7 and was star of a weekly reality TV show called Don't Go For It Electric Boy!
When the show became so popular that the apartment became surrounded by paparazzi, he was blindfolded and relocated.
Then on March 28, 1999, he was relocated a third time.
Believing he was completely alone and unused to the feel of the clothes he had been given for the trip, he stripped down naked again.
Then suddenly the walls dropped away from the apartment and he found himself in a television studio, surrounded by cheering fans.
In his time in isolation he had become one of the biggest celebrities in Japan.
"Do you mean that everyone has been watching my naked body all this time?" he asked the host.
"That's out of order."
The program had used an eggplant logo to cover his genitals during the broadcast.
In his time after his success Hamatsu reported feeling hot and sweaty wearing clothes and had difficulty talking to people.
The show marked the pinnacle of his fame, but he found some success as a local actor. In 2016, he climbed Mount Everest.
However, viewers in Aberystwyth never got to see the film, taking particular umbrage at the full frontal nudity of actress Sue Jones-Davies (right).
That was until the town elected Jones-Davies as mayor.
Jones-Davies lifted the ban and staged a screening of the film, attended by co-stars Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
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