Jimmy Savile has, since the years after his death, been shown as a paedophile extraordinaire over a media career that spanned five decades.

He died at the age of 84 in 2011, and in the years that followed hundreds (more than 450 by some estimates) of people have come forward with tales of his indiscretions.

Back in 2000, when nerdy doccie maker Louis Theroux interviewed him, rumours had swirled but he had yet to be formally charged. Not that it wasn’t obvious that he had multiple screws loose, with this below from the Telegraph:

The famously tracksuited TV presenter and philanthropist revealed that he called his bed “The Altar”, chose not to own an oven for fear of attracting women into his life and kept one of his homes as a shrine to his late mother. Theroux challenged Savile over the rumours of paedophilia that quietly swirled around the Jim’ll Fix It host, but they were rebuffed. Little more was said of it.

Here’s a little edit of the entire interview with some pearlers from Jimmy. Watch until the end, that’s when the paedo bomb gets dropped:

During the full interview here’s what he had to say about the allegations:

Savile explained that he lied and said he “hated children” in an attempt to kill the tabloid rumours that he was a paedophile. “Obviously I don’t hate them but we live in a very funny world and it’s easier as a single man to say, ‘I don’t like children’, because that puts a lot of salacious tabloid people off the hunt.”

Rather than deny any paedophilia, Savile went on the defence, saying: “How does anybody know whether I am or not? Nobody knows whether I am. Or not. So I can tell from experience when they say, ‘Oh, all those children on Jim’ll Fix It’, I say, ‘I hate them’.”

“That’s my policy. That’s the way it goes. And it’s worked. A dream. It’s worked a dream.”

It helps when your employers turn a blind eye to the evidence, something the BBC were criminally guilty of during his time with the company. Following a Scotland Yard investigation into the matter, Operation Yewtree, four other male entertainers were arrested for sex crimes.

A little too late, me thinks.

[source:telegraph]