Naruhito and Masako
Naruhito with his wife, Masako, 2009.
Masako
empress of Japan
Also known as: Owada Masako
Masako (born December 9, 1963, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese diplomat who became the crown princess of Japan when she married Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993. She became empress of Japan in May 2019. Owada Masako was the daughter of Owada Hisashi, a high-ranking official of the Japanese government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a child she lived in the Soviet Union and in the United States, where her father was on diplomatic missions. In...