Louis Theroux has admitted he is still haunted by his “friendly” relationship with Jimmy Savile and that inspired his support of Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed.
Louis has devoted seven chapters of his new forthcoming book to Savile and was “not sure” of his guilt as a sexual predator when making his documentary When Louis Met Jimmy in 2001.
He said: “I think about it a lot. I have got a book coming out later this year and about seven chapters are about Jimmy Savile so it would be a bit weird not to talk about it.
“In terms of my professional career I would say it is the strangest and most upsetting event to have been in any way involved in.
“I quite liked him. I have to pick my words carefully, people say 'you were his friend'. And I would never call myself his friend in a straight forward way. We were friendly, I had friendly feelings towards him.
“The programme is a strong programme but doesn't get repeated for obvious reasons. It is a hard headed programme. My producer wanted to do a proper bit of journalism.”
Referring to a clip from the doc where Savile claimed to hate kids and denied being a paedophile when pressed, Louis added: “The hallmark of his offending was he was weirdly brazen in his ability to address it and take the position that is completely bizarre.
"He had an ability not to be nobbled by it. When he was confronted about his offending, people did come to confront him and he had the ability to brazen it out.”
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival Louis said he felt obliged to speak out in support of Michael Jackson's sexual abuse accusers because of his own relationship with the late entertainer Jimmy Savile.
Louis said: "I think that was part of it. In a strange sense I suppose I felt I had a little bit of a responsibility. Having had – without seeking it out – an education in how grooming works and how abuse often takes place.
"One of the most upsetting things for me is when you go through Twitter and you see the abuse directed at Dan Reed – the director of (Michael Jackson documentary) Leaving Neverland – and the strange obtuseness of how many people, I assume through ignorance and in a sort of way self-grooming, their inability to see that the process of recognising yourself as a victim takes time.
"People say: 'You're inconsistent' or 'Wade Robson wanted to film a Michael Jackson tribute show two years before he came out and said he'd been abused, that doesn't make any sense'.
"If you actually understood how mixed up we are as people and how our circuits get scrambled, that makes complete sense. Without going off too much talking about Leaving Neverland, one of the extraordinary things about it was the way we saw that grooming process, and the fact that one of the guys – James Safechuck – appeared to still be in love with Michael Jackson.
"I generally resist doing tweets that I know will be controversial or divisive. But I thought on this one I'm going to stick my head above the parapet and take a stand."
Louis also addressed Ruby Wax's recent claims he stole her style of documentary-making in the Nineties.
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