No Evidence Japanese Emperor Hirohito Was Buried with Mickey Mouse Watch

Claim:

Japanese Emperor Hirohito was buried with a Mickey Mouse wristwatch after his death in 1989.

Rating:

Context:

According to a newspaper article written at the time of Hirohito's funeral, spokespeople for Japan's imperial family refused to confirm "reports" the emperor was buried with a Mickey Mouse wristwatch.

On July 11, 2024, a Reddit user posted a claim to the r/todayilearned subreddit that former Japanese Emperor Hirohito was buried with a Mickey Mouse watch after he died in 1989. As of this writing, the post had amassed more than 25,000 upvotes.

TIL One of Emperor Hirohito's most treasured possessions was a Mickey Mouse watch, which was presented to him on a trip to the US when he visited Disneyland in 1975. When he died in 1989 he was buried with the watch.

The claim appeared in similar Reddit posts for years, as well as on other social media sites and in newspapers, blogs, and books. 

It was well attested that Hirohito was a big Disney fan. In October 1975, the emperor and his wife conducted a 15-day goodwill tour of the United States, which included a well-publicized half-day visit to Disneyland Resort, in Anaheim, CA. It was during this visit, a number of sources claim, Hirohito acquired the watch he was allegedly eventually buried with.

(Oct 9, 1975 Press-Telegram [Long Beach, California], via Newspapers.com)

The most widely cited source for the claim appeared to be Edward Behr's biography of the emperor, "Hirohito: Behind the Myth." In the book's description of Hirohito's funeral, which took place on Feb. 24, 1989, Behr wrote how the emperor's "favorite personal effects, including his microscope and his Mickey Mouse watch, were buried with him." 

However, Behr did not provide a citation for this claim. Further cause for skepticism can be found in a New York Times review of the biography, which noted that Behr's "sources on the whole are thin and sometimes unreliable... He exaggerates and makes mistakes of fact as well as of inference."

An earlier source for the claim Hirohito was buried with a Mickey Mouse watch is an article about the emperor's funeral written in February 1989 by Stewart Slavin, a reporter for newswire agency United Press International (UPI). Slavin, who at the time managed the agency's Tokyo bureau and was chief correspondent for North Asia, wrote:

The Imperial Household Agency refused to identify the items buried with Hirohito, but they reportedly range from a microscope he used in marine biology, a list of illustrous sumo wrestlers, his favorite sport, and a Mickey Mouse watch he was presented during a visit to Disneyland in California in the early 1970s. 

In other words, Slavin received no official confirmation of the items buried with Hirohito, only unofficial reports. 

Reports of Hirohito being buried with the Mickey Mouse watch are not mentioned in other major news coverage of the emperor's funeral, although the Los Angeles Times did mention he "occasionally wore a Mickey Mouse watch."

Snopes reached out to Slavin to ask if he could share any additional details about the origins and reliability of the reports he received in February 1989 of Hirohito being buried with a Mickey Mouse watch. We also reached out to Japan's Imperial Household Agency, which oversees state matters concerning the Imperial Family. We will update this story if we hear back from either source.

Because no sources from the time of Hirohito's funeral definitively stated the emperor was buried with a Mickey Mouse watch, and due to the unavailability of firsthand evidence supporting the rumor, we rated this claim as Unfounded.

Sources:

Archives, L. A. Times. "Hirohito Dies, Ending 62 Years as Japan's Ruler." Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 1989, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-01-08-mn-196-story.html.

"Emperor's New Friend," Press-Telegram, 9 Oct. 1975, p. 1. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/article/press-telegram/151437923/.

Behr, Edward. Hirohito : Behind the Myth. New York : Villard Books, 1989. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/hirohitobehindmy0000behr.

"Disney Death." Tokyo Times, 14 June 2005, https://www.tokyotimes.org/disney-death/.

Dower, John W. "WHAT DID THE EMPEROR DO AND WHEN DID HE DO IT?" The New York Times, 8 Oct. 1989. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/08/books/what-did-the-emperor-do-and-when-did-he-do-it.html.

"Emperor Hirohito Was Laid to Rest Friday at the... - UPI Archives." UPI, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/02/24/Emperor-Hirohito-was-laid-to-rest-Friday-at-the/9799604299600/. Accessed 16 July 2024.

reviewer, Gordon Farrer. "As It Happened." The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 Oct. 2007, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/as-it-happened-20071005-gdr9k3.html.

Seagrave, Sterling, and Peggy Seagrave. The Yamato Dynasty : The Secret History of Japan's Imperial Family. New York : Broadway Books, 1999. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/yamatodynastysec00seag.

WHCF Subject File - FO: Foreign Affairs. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/guides/findingaid/WHCFFO.HTM. Accessed 16 July 2024.