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Jeremy Irons 'feels sorry' for those accused of abuse
Actor says girls of the 70s were 'goers'.
Jeremy Irons is beginning to make a habit of expressing his controversial views on controversial subjects.
The star of films like 'Die Hard With A Vengeance' and Adrian Lyne's adaptation of 'Lolita' has now weighed in on the on-going sexual abuse scandals involving TV stars of the 70s and 80s.
In one of his more inflammatory remarks during an interview with the Sunday Times, Irons described the girls of the 70s as 'goers'.
“I mean look at 'Top of the Pops',” he said. “What were those girls doing there? What did they want, the lot of them, when they hung around the caravans and trailers afterwards?
[Jeremy Irons says gay marriage could lead to fathers marrying sons]
“There was a sort of sexual freedom. To have all that dragged up for something relatively innocuous - that’s tough. They seem to be in a mood to pillory anybody.
“There is a blanket term for child abuse, and if the worst thing you have done was put your hand on someone’s thigh under their skirt, that may be sexual abuse, but it’s not like buggering a nine-year-old boy.”
Irons, who is 64 and married to actress Sinead Cusack, added that he felt 'incredibly sorry for... the television guy on Coronation Street', referring to William Roache, who is facing several charges of abuse of girls aged between 11 and 16.
[Ray Winstone: I didn't pay tax for 20 years]
He then went on to say: “I mean, Jimmy Savile - well, I won’t go there because that just sounds appalling, but... one hears that [sexual abuse] mostly happens within families, anyway. And I haven’t seen Operation Yewtree getting many fathers or mothers.”
It's not the first time – or even the first time recently – that Irons has shocked with his views.
Earlier this year, after being asked his thoughts on gay marriage, he mused rather strangely on what effects loosening of the law might have, including whether fathers might be allowed to marry sons for tax purposes.
“I worry that it means we change or debase what marriage is,” he said. “Tax-wise it's an interesting one. Could a father not marry his son? It's not incest between men. Incest is there to protect us from inbreeding. But men don't breed, so incest wouldn't cover that.”
He said in a later interview with the BBC that he wished he'd 'buttoned his lip' over the remarks.
“I think gay marriage is wonderful. I think any reason that holds anybody together in a relationship is great,” he said.
“If it works as glue, if it makes you feel better, if it makes you feel you love your partner more, then great.”
He may, however, wish he'd also 'buttoned his lip' over these latest comments...
