In an interview with the UK’s Sunday Times, former child actor Elijah Wood has some revealing things to say about Hollywood’s problem with child molestation and sexual abuse.

Elijah even went as far as comparing it to the BBC’s problem with Jimmy Savile, who molested multiple victims throughout his career. Here are some quick stats:

Hollywood is in the grip of a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business, and that abuse was probably still taking place.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating. Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organised.

There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.

The abuse was allowed to continue because victims can’t speak as loudly as people in power. That’s the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people. They can be squashed but their lives have been irreparably damaged.

Just like those who were abused by Bill Cosby have slowly come out, recent years have also witnessed allegations concerning senior Hollywood figures – the protected child abusers in the industry.

In fact, there’s a shelter called Bizparents that was set up to help child actors, and houses around 100 parents and children engaged in the entertainment industry. A “tsunami” of claims was beginning, said co-founder Anne Henry.

Just one actor is Corey Feldman, of Gremlins fame, who said as a teenager he was surrounded by abusers. When he was 14 and 15, older men had been “leching [sic] around like vultures”. The actor went on to suffer mental health problems, alcoholism and drug addiction.

Elijah expressed he had been spared these similar experiences as a child actor because his mother had not let him attend parties.

She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career. If you’re innocent you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed.

People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey.

And just when you think it’s only something that happens outside of your world, you remember that people are catching little boys right out of our own backyard.

[source: thetelegraph]