For three months from the end of 1999 until the beginning of 2000, Louis Theroux made one of his best known documentaries: When Louis Met Jimmy. Now 15 years latter Theroux who maintained a friendship with Jimmy Savile that continued until 2004 is setting out to understand the truth more fully by talking to the people Jimmy Savile knew and introduced Louis to between 1999 and 2004, people who worked closely with him as well as some of his victims, friends and family.
“BBC Two should be part of the national conversation and this challenging subject matter is the kind I want to see on the channel. Louis Theroux is one of the country’s most talented filmmakers, and I am very pleased that he is revisiting this important – and deeply personal – subject for us, asking difficult questions about the life of Jimmy Savile and those around him and exploring the impact his crimes had on his victims.” Kim Shillinglaw, Controller of BBC Two and BBC Four commented.
Louis will try to understand the personality of a man who was able to commit such a spectrum of sexual crimes; how someone he once called a friend used his celebrity status to commit these crimes; and how the power of this public image afforded him immunity. Louis will also explore the impact those crimes had on his victims, and the legacy of their revelations. How exactly did Jimmy Savile get away with it for all those years?