Pete’s Research Project
Everyone’s probably heard by now that Pete Townsend was arrested on child pornography charges on Monday. Before the arrest, the entertainment newswires were carrying the following:
Rock legend Pete Townshend has stunned his legions of followers by confessing he is the celebrity at the centre of a police child porn investigation. The Who guitarist has admitted using his credit card to download sex videos of children from the internet, but insists he was simply doing research for a book he is writing about his childhood years, when he himself suffered sexual abuse. “The Kids Are Alright” rocker, whose name is on an FBI list of 7,000 pedophiles, says, “I haven’t been charged with anything, but I think I’m f*****. I was worried this might happen. This will be the most damaging thing for my career. I want to clear my name.”
Townshend has three children of his own and follows both former tour-mate Gary Glitter and Euro-pop mastermind Jonathan King in the list of musicians associated with child porn scandals. He says, “I toured with Gary Glitter in the past but I am not him. I have always been into pornography and I have used it all my life. But I am not a pedophile and I think pedophilia is appalling.” Townshend adds, “I have been writing my life story and the research was for a book. I have been in touch with Scotland Yard to tell them what I was doing. I have contacted them but no police officers have contacted me.”
The raw emotion and sense of desperation you can hear in those statements just breaks my heart. You just don’t hear things like that coming out of celebrities’ mouths anymore. Something like this is usually handled by the celebrity’s handlers and lawyers and any statements released on the celebrity’s behalf are devoid of anything even resembling genuine human feeling.
But I was disappointed that Pete’s first concern was the damage that this might do to his career. Come on, Pete! You’re a 57-year-old former rock star, you’re partially deaf, you haven’t had a hit album in decades, and you could probably sit on your butt and live off your royalties for the rest of your “career.” These kids’ lives have been destroyed as a result of the materials that you bought for your little research project and they’ll spend the rest of their lives trying to overcome the damage of the emotional and physical abuse that they’ve suffered…and you’re worried about your career?
Granted, I shouldn’t assume that he doesn’t care about these children just because he didn’t mention them. He’s obviously a little preoccupied with self-preservation right now. But I was further put off when he invoked the time-honored/time-worn defense most recently used by Winona “I-Was-Doing-Research-For-A-Movie” Ryder. It could very well be true but I’ve gotta tell you, my first thought was, “Sorry, Pete…we won’t get fooled again.”
