Pee-wee Herman Star Paul Reubens Opens Up About 1991 Arrest and Child Porn Scandal

Paul Reubens, of Pee-wee Herman fame, went from being one of the most respected and admired stars of children's TV and film to "that weirdo who got caught allegedly masturbating in a porn theater" overnight in 1991. Scandal slammed Reubens again in 2001 when his Hollywood home was raided on a false tip, resulting in three years battling child pornography charges which were eventually reduced to a misdemeanor obscenity offense.
In an in-depth interview with
Playboy, the 58-year-old actor defends himself, states how he could have proven in court the masturbation arrest was an error, and describes himself as "more infamous for two misdemeanors" that perhaps any cult hero in Hollywood history.
Reporter Bill Zehme writes of the interview, "Paul Reubens told me repeatedly, as we dug through emotional crevices unimaginable, that he'd never opened himself up this nakedly outside of a shrink's presence."
Read on.
Pee-wee Herman has seen a major resurgence lately, with a live stage show receiving glowing reviews in LA and set to come to Broadway this fall, as well as talks of new films possibly produced by Judd Apatow. "Being somebody who has had the opportunity to move through a lot of horrible stuff, I would much rather be in this mode of 'Wow, it really is true! People really do like me' instead of any other negative thing I've dwelled on or built up," Reubens tells Playboy.
But there were much, much darker times. His arrest became the hottest story of its time in 1991, beating out serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer for headlines. "My story led the news for five days in a row. This man killed lots of people, drilled holes in their heads and poured acid into them. And he got the second spot on the news, after me," Reubens says.
The wounds of showbiz companions reducing him to a punchline still sting. Reubens calls TV personalities like Arsenio Hall and Jay Leno people he naively mistook for true friends. "I had already said the allegations weren't true and felt I deserved the benefit of the doubt from them. Make a joke about me but also just say, 'By the way, he's been a friend of our show for many years,'" Reubens says. "I was shocked people would kick me when I was down."
One of the newsiest bits in Playboy's interview is the revelation that Reubens was set to knock the masturbation charges down if the case had gone to trial. "We had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her nondominant hand. I'm right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn't have been me."
Reubens ultimately plead no contest to get out of the limelight and move on. But moving on wasn't as easy as he'd hoped. Though Reubens had never been a socialite or paparazzi magnet, he found his home staked out by photographers for months. "To get out, I hid on the floor of somebody's car, under a blanket. Toward the end of those first three months I made an appointment with a therapist and made him come to my house. Sometime during the session he said, 'You know you're in shock, right?' I didn't know. When he said it, I thought, Oh my God! Okay, I get it ... As a result I now know everything there is to know about scandal and shock ... I know how to navigate all this hideous, sh***y, horrible stuff you go through. Which saved my life when scandal number two happened."
The second scandal is handily summarized by Reubens himself:
"The police had been given a false tip in an alleged sting operation and came to my house. They thought the wrong thing, and they were there for the wrong reason, and when that became clear, they should have left. Or they should have taken all my computers like they did but spent three minutes looking through them and realized they were wrong. Hypothetically, even in a less than perfect world, you assume if the police barge into your house and it's the wrong house and they have guns drawn and you hit the ground because you're supposed to be, say, a crack dealer -- and it's obvious you're not -- that they ought to say, 'Oh, okay. Sorry.' But they don't, and they certainly didn't after raiding my home in search of things that just didn't exist. The state eventually realized I had nothing offensive, but the city attorney decided to put me through three years of hell anyway."
Now Reubens faces an existence where the two misdemeanors -- misunderstandings both, it seems -- trail him as footnotes on Wikipedia, IMDb, on airplanes or in interactions with complete strangers. "But you know what?" he says. "At this point the footnote is neither here nor there for me. It has no effect on me.
It's hard to argue the greater footnote for Paul Reubens will always be the classic character of Pee-wee Herman, a gig he's so associated with 'The Godfather' himself didn't know there was a distinction to be made: "Amazingly, by way of a mutual friend of his son Christian, I learned that even Marlon Brando thought Pee-wee was a real person! He couldn't believe I was an actor who had created that persona -- which is maybe the highest benediction."
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Absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE PeeWee! SOOO glad to see him back! Can't wait to catch the show on Broadway!
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If the Media couldn't make so much money off stories like these, nobody would care. So why are they making so much money off stories like these? Are there skeletons in the closets that need to be dealt with?
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if you wanna know the truth check the site droidupdate(insert period here)net out, it tells you the real truth
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the police made total fools of themselves, arresting someone for masturbating in an adult theatre. Whether it was true or not, isn't that why people go to those places? Police have nothing better to do than skulk around porn palaces looking for people beating off? I'll bet people were being shot, stabbed and murdered in other parts of that city while the cops wasted their time looking for masturbators. And they wonder why so many people don't respect them.
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Trust me, it's been over 20yrs. since I've darkened the doors of an adult theater, having been married for part of that time and with all that's available on the internet. But I do remember the floors being sticky from people dropping their loads all over the place. You're right, why were they so concerned with arresting someone for doing that in that type of place. The only way you could be seen would be if you had a flashlight and were specifically looking for that sort of thing! Must have been a slow night for criminality!
I'm pro Pee-Wee on this one.
Ahahaha. Ahem.
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The real question is, was he making "Pee-wee Herman" sounds when they found him in the theater? Ha-HA!!!
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Sure they do. Innocent people "cop" pleas because it guarantees a lesser punishment. A trial is like rolling the dice...if your case isn't handled properly, or the jury is biased, you can be screwed. The system isn't perfect. The punishment by being found guilty would always be much greater.
He may have had his reasons for not taking that risk, other than actually being guilty. You just don't know.
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Pee Wee !!!!!!!!!!
He got screwed. That so-called arrest was crap. What in the world possesed those awful cops to ruin this man's career over something so pointless.
I used to love his show. So creative and so good.
I wish Pee Wee all the best
Ed
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yeah they do. And yeah it does happened. If you have no clue what happens in an interrogation, being arrested or a detective, than you would say this. That's why the evidence is still presented even if a confession is taken.
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Let me tell you, Woody Allen's antics make Pee Wee look like an altar boy. But 'ol Woody is still accepted, go figure.I buy the bootleg movies the Monday after they are released, my own little payback hahahahahahah
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hmmmm...I think I could prove their study wrong..
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You're still a pervert......
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Apparently so are a lot of people. Otherwise this story would be worthless.
I think 19yrs. is too long a period of time to try and explain yourself to the public. The second incident wasn't given as much publicity but there must have been something to it for them to reduce it to a misdemeanor offense. I find it humorous for him to think he could prove he wasn't playing with himself because they said he was using his left hand. Why did Playboy find it important to interview him at this point in time? He's a pervert and there's no getting around it.
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At least he didn't inhale.
Hmm... I would like to believe Pee Wee's story. And either way, I agree that it is sad how people get off knocking famous people down... Whether or not he actually was masturbating in a theater I don't think we will ever know. I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. However, I feel the need to say (please don't pretend it's weird for me to know this...) that I happen to know that the non-dominant hand excuse is BS because my husband is right handed and whacks with his left. Just saying.
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if your husband has to wack off he's the fool for sleeping beside you whatever the reason you have more holes in your body
**TMI WARNING** UGH. I should have known we were going to be children about it. Well, if you want to insist on making me go there- we have one kid, and are not in a rush to have another yet... Withdrawal, according to our doctor, is actually a fairly reliable birth control option, provided you are diligent about it and the guy flushes out his urethra between sex sessions. :) Sorry to anyone who reads this, but if someone is going to try to talk stuff I am going to explain myself.
that their ole boy didnt do it in a pitur movie show. he done it outside in the parkin lot
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