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Jim Davidson, famed for his victory on Celebrity Big Brother, shared an unsettling insight into his past interactions with the notorious Jimmy Savile during their tenure at the BBC. In a conversation with Andrew Gold, host of the Heretics podcast, Davidson revealed that he often found himself avoiding Savile on set. However, his avoidance wasn’t out of fear for his safety but simply because he found Savile to be “boring.”
During the podcast, Gold inquired about Davidson’s experiences at the BBC while Savile was present, asking, “Were you at the BBC when Savile was roaming about? What was he like?” Davidson responded candidly, reminiscing, “We used to run off. You’d hear him go ‘Now then, now then,’ and you’d think, ‘F*** me, it’s Savile.’ The thought wasn’t that he might be threatening or inappropriate, just that he was dull.”
In the same podcast episode, Davidson also addressed the controversy surrounding his alleged visit to convicted sex offender Gary Glitter in prison. He clarified his involvement with the charity Care After Combat, which supports veterans and soldiers at risk of entering the criminal justice system. “We would visit them in prison, assess their situation, and pair them with a mentor who would support them for three years after their release,” Davidson explained.
Davidson recounted a visit to HMP The Verne, a facility that houses sex offenders. He clarified, “This was different. We didn’t provide mentors to these individuals, as they were veterans listed on the sex offenders registry.”
“So I went to HMP The Verne, which is a sex offenders clinic. Now this is different – you don’t give these guys mentors. These were veterans that were on the sex offenders [registry].
“So we’d say to about 30 guys, ‘We don’t quite know what to do. Give us your story – you’re going to come out of here one day…’ It was that kind of thing, to work out how to stop reoffending.
“[There’s a] knock at the door, there’s a Paul Gadd outside wants to come in. I go and look and there he is, Gary Glitter!
“He took his bobble hat off to a bald head, as if it makes any difference, and said, ‘Jim! It’s me, Gary!’ I said, ‘Oh, hello’. He said, ‘Can I come in?’ And I said, ‘No, this is for veterans!’
“He did my TV show loads of times. I didn’t go out with him, he wasn’t a pal. So that was it, that was me banning Gary Glitter.”