Paul Reubens Addresses Arrest, ‘Pedophile’ Rumors in Personal Recordings Revealed in Documentary

Now, almost two years after his demise, Paul Reubens, the person who made Pee-Wee Herman a family title, is opening up about all of it in his personal phrases — in recordings made shortly earlier than his demise — within the HBO docuseries Pee-Wee as Himself, launched Friday.

Within the movie, Reubens talks about that ’91 arrest for indecent publicity at an grownup theater, saying it was a defining second in his profession to that time, and one which was largely misunderstood on the time. Much more than that, maybe, it uncovered the person behind the parable.

Within the documentary, Reubens confirmed that he was homosexual, admitting he was nervous to take action, and loved “many, many secret relationships.” However he at all times put his profession first. And within the early days, that profession was rapidly constructed across the child-like Pee-Wee Herman.

“I used to be out of the closet, after which I went again within the closet,” he defined of his early skilled years. “I wasn’t pursuing the Paul Reubens profession; I used to be pursuing the Pee-wee Herman profession.” That profession took off like a rocket.

He detailed a relationship early on that got here to imply loads to him, nevertheless it additionally started to impression his ambitions. “After we break up up, I simply made a aware resolution and went, ‘I’m not doing this once more,'” he shares.

“I not solely wasn’t going to be overtly homosexual, however I wasn’t going to be in a relationship,” he provides. “My profession would’ve completely suffered if I used to be overtly homosexual, and so I went to nice lengths for a lot of, a few years to maintain it a secret.”

First born as a personality in iconic Groundlings improv theater, Reubens introduced Pee-Wee Herman to the stage for his personal present in 1981 and have become an nearly prompt phenomenon. By 1985, he’d starred in his first movie, with a second on the way in which.

One 12 months later, he launched his personal Saturday morning sequence, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, which might run till 1990. For a time, he was one of the vital well-known and standard entertainers on the earth — till the arrest and the mugshots, displaying a shaggy-haired Reubens.

“It actually backfired after I obtained arrested,” Reubens says within the new documentary. “Folks had by no means seen a photograph of me aside from Pee-wee Herman, after which impulsively I had a Charles Manson mug shot.”

“It’s stunning what hideous, horrible, imply stuff individuals say and take into consideration me,” he continues. Within the instant aftermath of the arrest, Reubens was torn aside within the tabloid media, derailing his profession for almost a decade, although he did discover some memorable smaller roles in tasks like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Murphy Brown, and The Nightmare Earlier than Christmas, although not as Pee-Wee.

And whereas he had produced sufficient episodes of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse throughout 5 seasons for syndication, CBS opted to cancel these after his arrest. Whereas he was slowly capable of revive his profession, and even the Pee-Wee Herman persona, there is no doubt the arrest and subsequent speculations about his private life had an enormous impression on him.

A police raid on his house in 2002 that uncovered his assortment of classic homoerotic artwork additionally caught after a few of it was categorized as youngster pornography. Reubens, who collected all kinds of issues all through his grownup life, discovered himself charged with one misdemeanor rely of possession of kid pornography.

Via a plea deal, he obtained the fabric reclassified as having nothing to do with youngster pornography, and pleaded responsible to possession of obscene materials. He was ordered to attend necessary counseling and needed to register as a intercourse offender for 3 years.

Whereas most consider that public notion of what occurred was overblown and unjust, it nonetheless hung as a shadow over the rest of Reuben’s profession.

This can be a giant a part of why Reubens stated he wished to peel again the curtain of his life with this documentary. In a recording made the day earlier than his demise, he defined he wished to make the movie “to let individuals see who I actually am and the way painful and tough it was to be labeled one thing that I wasn’t,” stated Reubens.

“I wished individuals to know that sometimes the place there’s smoke, there isn’t at all times fireplace,” he added. “I wished in some way for individuals to know that my entire profession, the whole lot I did and wrote, was based mostly in love and my need to entertain and produce glee and creativity to younger individuals and to everybody.”

Reubens died July 30, 2023, at 70 years previous whereas battling each myelogenous leukemia and metastic lung most cancers.