‘Hollywood in the grip of child abuse scandal similar to Jimmy Savile’

Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

“You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.

“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.

“It was all organised.

“There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

“There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”

People with parasitic interests will see you as their preyElijah Wood

Wood said the abuse was allowed to continue because victims “can’t speak as loudly as people in power.”

“That’s the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people,” he said.

“They can be squashed but their lives have been irreparably damaged.”

Allegations that senior Hollywood figures have been protecting child abusers have gathered pace in recent years.

Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.

Corey Feldman, another former child actor who started in films such as Gremlins, the Goonies and Stand by Me in the 1980s , has said that as a young teenager he was “surrounded” by abusers.

Jamison Newlander, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman
Jamison Newlander, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys (1987). Haim died of a drug overdose in 2010 Credit: Rex

In 2012 he told a British tabloid that when he was 14 and 15 older men had been “leching around like vultures”.

The actor went on to suffer mental health problems, alcoholism and drug addiction.

Wood said he had been spared similar experiences while growing up because his mother had not let him attend parties.

“She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career,” he said.

“If you’re innocent you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed.

“People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey.”

Jimmy Savile’s sex offending at the BBC

Highlighted instances of sex abuse carried out by the late DJ while working for the BBC

  • Savile sexually assaulted 57 women/girls and 15 boys
  • 21 of Savile’s female victims were aged under 16 (the youngest sexual assault victim was eight)
  • 36 of his female victims were aged 16 or over
  • 13 of Savile’s victims were boys aged under 16 (the youngest sexual assault victim was nine)
  • 2 male victims were aged 16 or over
  • The youngest girl Savile raped was aged 13
  • The youngest boy Savile raped was aged 10
  • The earliest known incident was the rape of a 13-year-old girl at Lime Grove in 1959
  • Savile’s last known incident was in 2006, involving the indecent touching of an adult woman following the last Top of the Pops recording
  • Dame Janet identified 72 BBC victims of Savile in connection with his work at the BBC, including eight rapes (six female and two male) and one attempted rape (female).
  • The majority of his assaults took place in the Seventies (44), one took place in 1959, 10 in the Sixties, 17 in the Eighties, three in the Nineties and one in the 2000s
  • The largest number (19) were assaulted in connection with Top of the Pops.
  • 17 victims were assaulted in connection with Jim’ll Fix It

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/22/hollywood-in-the-grip-of-child-abuse-scandal-similar-to-jimmy-sa/

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