Louis Theroux defends Jimmy Savile documentary: ‘I’m still proud of that programme’

Louis Theroux has said he is “still proud” of the Jimmy Savile documentary he made 20 years ago, despite its failure to expose the entertainer as a sex offender.

The documentary filmmaker made the comments in his new series, Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge, in which he reflects on his early work.

Theroux said he obviously wishes he could have found out the truth about Savile when he was making When Louis Met… Jimmy in 2000, but he doesn’t regret how the documentary turned out.

“If you’re asking, do I wish I’d made that programme and been able to expose him? I mean, it’s a bit like saying, do I wish I could turn cheese into chocolate?” he said. “Do I wish I could fly? Do I wish I could go back in time and predict the outcome of the World Cup and make millions of pounds?”

He added: “Do I wish I could go back and expose Jimmy Savile as a sex offender? Yeah, of course. If I did that story with a time machine and went back again, I would be armed with so much more information. But I really think that, given what we knew then, it’s a piece of work that holds up.”

'When Louis Met... Jimmy' (BBC)

He said he is “still proud of that programme” and believes it’s a “really solid piece of work” that was one of the most “revealing” pieces of television made about Savile while he was alive.

Theroux also said he is glad his documentary didn’t paint Savile as a saint. “It wasn’t as though I went, ‘You know what? He’s a good bloke,’” said the documentarian. “Or, ‘He’s fine. Clean bill of health.’ At the end I was like, ‘He’s mystifying. He’s clearly incredibly tough in terms of his level of steely self-possession, and his sex life remains a complete enigma.’”

Theroux has previously described meeting Savile as "the strangest and most upsetting event I've ever been involved in".

Following Savile's death in 2011, 450 alleged victims of sexual abuse contacted the Metropolitan Police in just 10 weeks, with officials describing the scale of allegations against him as "unprecedented".

Theroux made another documentary about Savile in 2016 in an attempt to try to understand his failure to have spotted the alleged decades of abuse.

Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge airs on Sunday 6 September at 9pm on BBC Two.