J-pop legend Ayumi Hamasaki confirms she is losing her hearing

Japanese pop sensation and undisputed queen Ayumi Hamasaki is losing her hearing in her remaining good ear, the star shared with fans on her Team Ayu blog.

The singer said she recently started experiencing severe dizziness, was unable to walk straight, and was even vomiting while at rehearsals.

She also noticed her hearing started to deteriorate and after a series of tests, doctors told her that her right ear was beginning to weaken, having had to compensate for her left ear for the past nine years.

However, Ayumi said she had no plans to stop performing, because she felt that the stage was where she “belonged”.

Ayumi’s hearing has been in decline since the mid-2000s, when she was diagnosed as being deaf in her left year.

That condition can be traced back to the cold and ear infection she caught while on a tour in 2000.

Despite being warned that she needed to lessen her exposure to loud noises, Ayumi only spent a few days recovering before she went back to touring, and did not cancel or postpone any concert dates until later.

Dubbed the “Empress of J-pop, Ayumi is considered one of Japan’s best selling-artists of all time, with over 50 million records sold.

Her debut single, “Poker Face”, was released in 1998 and her first album debuted at the top of the Oricon charts in Japan, where it stayed for four weeks.