Advertisement

Pee Wee Herman opens up on 'Dateline'

NEW YORK, April 2 (UPI) -- Appearing on "Dateline NBC," Paul Reubens broke his silence regarding his 1991 arrest for indecent exposure and recent guilty plea to an obscenity charge.

Anchor Stone Phillips asked the man also known as Pee Wee Herman about his 1991 arrest for indecent exposure inside a Florida adult theater, prompting Reubens to explain: "Obviously, I was not thinking. You know?"

Advertisement

"I certainly wasn't thinking to myself you're a children's show host," he explained. "Your show is still on television. I wasn't having that kind of thought process."

He continued, "It didn't seem like a crime to me... I certainly didn't think to myself, 'What happens if I get arrested for going in here?'"

Reubens also talked about how the L.A. police carted away boxes of magazines and photos from Reuben's home in 2001.

He said: "Most of it I view just as, it's a collection. It's historical... this is not a collection of child pornography. I don't want anyone for one second to think that I'm titillated by images of children. It's not me."

Two weeks ago, prosecutors agreed to drop the child pornography charge against Reubens, in return he pleaded guilty to possession of obscene materials.

Advertisement

Reubens emphasized: "You can say lots of things about me. And you might. The public may think I'm weird. They may think I'm crazy... that's all fine. As long as one of the things you're not thinking about me is that I'm a pedophile. Because that's not true."

Latest Headlines