TAIPEI - J-pop star Ayumi Hamasaki's whirlwind engagement announcement has some people wondering if it is a promotional stunt.

The 35-year-old singer announced on her TeamAyu fan club website last Friday: "I got engaged on Dec 12 Los Angeles time."

"He is just an ordinary graduate school medical student. Please watch over us."

It was reported that the pop star has a new single out on Dec 25 and tickets for her countdown concert started selling last Saturday.

Citing news sources, Apple Daily Taiwan said her fiance, who is not identified, is from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is 10 years her junior.

It said they met in January and romance bloomed in the spring.

She did not mention a wedding date but Apple Daily said she entered the United States recently with a foreign-citizen fiancee visa which stipulates that she must marry her American fiance within 90 days of arrival.

Her previous marriage to Austrian actor-model Manuel Schwarz, who is two years younger than her, lasted 12 months.

They dated for only four months before she announced her engagement on Jan 1, 2011, hours after she performed in a white wedding gown on the Red & White Song Contest on Japanese TV.

She and Schwarz married later that day in the United States.

She is still legally a single in Japan and, according to Japanese website Cyzo, her mother has advised her not to return home to wed in case she splits up again.

Hamasaki also had a seven-year romance with singer-actor Tomoya Nagase before she announced their split in July 2007, around the time she was releasing a single.

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