Janne Kataja opens up about his good friend Aku Hirviniemi’s sex message scandal in the book “Lopuuunmyyty”, published today.
In the one published on Wednesday Sold out – Janne Kataja – book (January 2025) has an entertainment artist in his voice in many places Janne Katajan a good friend and former business partner Aku Hirviniemi.
The men met as boys at the youth theater in Riihimäki. When 9-year-old Aku Hirviniemi signed up for the youth theater, he was received by Janne Kataja, three and a half years older, dressed in a suit jacket. There, Kataja, in a completely blonde permed hair, welcomed the children who signed up as little old ones.
– Jaha, welcome. Put the name here like this, Janne instructed, holding a briefcase. Janne’s essence was such that he owns the entire theater and runs the place, he writes Janne Series In the book about Janne Kataja’s life.
According to the book, Aku Hirviniemi felt the star of the youth theater, Janne Kataja, as the first threat, because Janne was significantly braver and therefore funnier than Aku, but when the boys decided to team up after a couple of years, at the age of 15 they were best friends.
At the age of 18, they gigged together and drove gig trips from one city to another. The two later worked together on a cruise ship as child magicians.
The men founded the first joint company in 1998. In 2001, they founded Hihhihhii Oy. More and more joint projects and work arrangements accumulated.
Janne Kataja reviews his friendship with Aku Hirviniemi in the new book. Henri Kärkkäinen
According to the book, sometimes the men distanced themselves from each other, but then got closer again.
– We got closer again in 2016, when Aku fell ill with exhaustion. That’s when I thought that to recover you need a friend like that, who has been on the journey since childhood, Kataja describes in the book.
In 2020, Hirviniemi was convicted of sexual harassment in the Court of Appeal of Turku, but the Court of Appeal left him without sentencing him to punishment. In the fall of 2023, there was another shock around Hirviniemi, when it turned out that Hirviniemi had sent several sex messages to numerous women. Janne Kataja’s phone also started ringing when reporters asked Kataja about her friend’s message.
According to the book, Kataja thought at the time that Hirviniemi’s problems were already behind them.
– At the time of the latest message, Aku and Janne had just done two programs together, i.e. MTV3 Game of Games mixed I’m a celebrity… let me go! – program. Janne was sincerely happy about them, because he lived in the belief that Aku’s problems that came up earlier would have been solved. He believed that the problems were taken care of and that Aku would have a better phase going on, Janne Sarja describes in his book.
– It often happens in serious addiction diseases that there are setbacks when struggling to get rid of them, Kataja reflects in the book.
Before Hirviniemi’s sex message uproar, Kataja and Hirviniemi were seen in many joint work projects. Pasi Liesimaa/IL
Betrayed friendship
The message uproar was a shock to Kataja and she felt that she was involved in the uproar for no reason.
In addition, Kataja felt that Hirviniemi had betrayed her as well.
– According to Janne, they and Aku developed into comedians side by side. Although the humor profiled quite differently in recent years, they have always been made to laugh by the same things. When Aku’s uproar came to light, the shock and anger felt really brutal for Janne, because Aku had not only betrayed the targets of his actions, but he had also betrayed Janne’s trust and deep friendship, author Janne Sarja writes based on numerous interviews with Janne Kataja.
– I felt sincere pity for the women who were the target of the messages. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for them. At the same time, I found myself pitying Aku as well, because I knew that Aku is a kind-hearted, sensitive and intelligent man. He had become ill from morbid publicity and admiration, which, according to my own diagnosis, triggered his alcohol addiction, Kataja says in the book.
Kataja was not in contact with Hirviniemi for a while, but since then the connection has returned.
– Recently, Janne has started to be in touch again because he feels that Aku has started to take care of his health, the book says.
– I want to emphasize that I am talking about this with Aku’s permission. But now it seems healing and recovery is underway. The man himself has admitted his mistakes and acknowledges the illness from which his actions stem, Kataja describes Hirviniemi in the book.
In Kataja’s opinion, Hirviniemi has already suffered its share. Kataja does not approve of this.
– In my heart, I would like to give him a chance to recover. I would like him to be the smart, charming, funny, fair, human and especially women-respecting man I once got to know, says Kataja in the book.
Janne Series’ book Sold Out – Janne Kataja tells about Janne Kataja’s life and career from childhood to today as an entertainment artist known to Finns.
Source: Janne Series: Sold Out – Janne Kataja (January 2025)