Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story has landed on Netflix, prompting horrified reactions from viewers.
The series, which promises to examine Savile’s crimes of sex abuse and paedophilia, and how it was covered up during his lifetime, has also revealed how Prince Charles sought out the broadcaster for PR advice in the 1990s.
“Just started watching on Netflix, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story. And it truly is a horror, the signs were there but no one did anything about it,” one viewer wrote.
Another tweeted: “This Jimmy Savile doc on Netflix is insane.”
“Honestly celebrity and wealth protects white men most of all,” one viewer said. “So his story (Savile that is) makes me shudder at what other rich famous white men have done. I mean I bet [Harvey] Weinstein wasn’t the worst.”
Another described the two-part documentary as “the most unsettling piece of television I think I’ve ever seen”.
“Feeling queasy,” they said. “He was literally telling the world who he really was, and no one picked up on it because the philanthropic work was a smokescreen.”
Another noted how Savile would repeatedly make jokes about being an abuser but they were laughed off: “This Jimmy Savile doc is insane… This man was out right confessing that he was a pedophile for years as a joke and people were laughing at it.”
After Savile died in 2011, hundreds of people came forward with allegations of abuse that he committed while working for the BBC and during charity work at hospitals and prisons.
An investigation by the NHS revealed that Savile sexually assaulted patients and staff at 28 different hospitals. The ages of the victims ranged between five and 75.
It has been claimed that figures within the BBC, Conservative Party and police all failed to act on allegations of abuse while Savile was alive.
