Sure, I mean, I didn't know it before as well!
So, when he said he had a "phase of eating grass", when he left Ayu's troupe after she broke up with him, he basically only meant he was turning away from being a "macho" or away from that traditional image of a Japanese man.
Never read one of his interviews myself, he apparently said and did some horribe things, but that one wasn't one of those.
And maybe this was even a good thing and that may be the reason his marriage and family seem to work after all?