Maezawa has paid an undisclosed amount to secure his seat as the first space tourist on board Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket, scheduled for lift-off in 2023.
"I've notified AbemaTV that for personal reasons, I have canceled my appearance on the Full Moon Lovers show," he tweeted.
"When I think about the 27,772 people who thought carefully and took the time to apply, I really feel regretful.
But going into this half-baked would be extremely rude to the applicants, so while it's selfish of me, I halted the project."
"I was one of the applicants," one user by the name of "Hiromi" wrote on Twitter.