A new documentary series chronicling the rise and fall of the late comedy legend Paul Reubens, best known for creating and portraying the character Pee-wee Herman, features an emotional death bed recording of the him addressing one of the most difficult parts of his career.
Pee-wee as Himself, which premiered Thursday (Jan. 23) at the Sundance Film Festival, dives into the comedian’s career in comedy and children’s programming. His reputation later took a hit when he was arrested for indecent exposure in 1991 and in 2002 for possession of child pornography. The charges were later dropped when Reubens pled guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge of possessing obscene images of minors, but the film maintains Reubens’ collection of vintage gay erotica had been misconstrued as child pornography, per The Los Angeles Times.
Director Matt Wolf interviewed Reubens for over 40 hours for the documentary series. But as his health declined, Reubens became more distant from the project and never addressed the pedophilia allegations until he recorded his thoughts the day before he died at age 70 in July 2023.
“More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn’t,” he says in the doc, per the LA Times. “The moment I heard someone label me as — I’m just going to say it — a pedophile, I knew it was going to change everything moving forward and backwards.”
He continues, “I wanted to talk about and have some understanding of what it’s like to be labeled a pariah, to have people scared of you, or unsure of you, or untrusting, or to look at what your intentions are through some kind of filter that’s not true. I wanted people to understand that occasionally, where there is smoke, there isn’t always fire.”
In the documentary series, publicist Kelly Bush Novak claims the child pornography case was a “homophobic witch hunt” as Reubens spent most of his career “in the closet,” as he says in the doc.
Reubens has long denied the accusations. In a 2004 interview with NBC, Reubens said, “I don’t want anyone for one second to think that I am titillated by images of children. It’s not me. You can say lots of things about me. And you might… That’s all fine. As long as one of the things you’re not thinking about me is that I’m a pedophile. Because that’s not true.”
The actor shared a posthumous statement on social media to fans after his death from cancer, which he had been battling privately for years. “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” he wrote. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”
The documentary will be available to stream on Max later this year.
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