Elijah Wood hounded after his suggestions Hollywood had child sex abuse scandal comparable to Savile

Actor says his earlier comments, comparing an alleged child abuse ring to the Jimmy Savile scandal, were taken out of context

Elijah Wood (Getty)

Elijah Wood has addressed the reaction to an interview where he appeared to suggest a child sexual abuse scandal had taken place in Hollywood, claiming his comments were taken out of context.

In May, the Lord of the Rings actor suggested the film industry had a child sex abuse scandal comparable to Jimmy Savile in the UK during an interview with The Sunday Times.

“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.”

Months later, he says he is still receiving messages from people pressurising him to exposed the alleged scandal and perpetrators, despite stressing he has no first-hand experience of the allegations.

“Those quotes came out of me discussing a documentary I’d seen and were taken incredibly out of context,” he told The Telegraph. “But I now constantly get messages saying that I need to uncover the names of [the perpetrators], like I’ve somehow become a spokesperson for a whole group of people.

“Truth is, I have nothing to do with that world. I’m merely someone who is deeply disturbed by the fact that something like that exists,” he said.

In the original interview, Wood spoke of "vipers" in the industry and a "darkness in the underbelly" of Hollywood.

"There are a lot of vipers i this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind. There is darkness in the underbelly.

"What bums me out about these situations is that the victims can't speak as loudly as the people in power," he said. "That's the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged."

Wood, who was a child actor himself, said his mother had protected him when his career was kick-starting: "She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my carrer. I never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on. The bizarre industry presents so many paths of temptation. If you don't have some kind of foundation, typically from family, then it will be difficult to deal with."

Days later, he clarified his remarks saying the interview sparked “a number of false and misleading headlines”, saying he had no first-hand experience of child abuse in Hollywood and was speaking to the reporter about a “powerful” documentary he had seen on the subject.