Paul Reubens Addresses Arrest, 'Pedophile' Rumors in Private Recordings Revealed in Documentary

Now, nearly two years after his death, Paul Reubens, the man who made Pee-Wee Herman a household name, is opening up about all of it in his own words -- in recordings made shortly before his death -- in the HBO docuseries Pee-Wee as Himself, released Friday.

In the film, Reubens talks about that '91 arrest for indecent exposure at an adult theater, saying it was a defining moment in his career to that point, and one that was largely misunderstood at the time. Even more than that, perhaps, it exposed the man behind the myth.

In the documentary, Reubens confirmed that he was gay, admitting he was nervous to do so, and enjoyed "many, many secret relationships." But he always put his career first. And in the early days, that career was quickly built around the child-like Pee-Wee Herman.

"I was out of the closet, and then I went back in the closet," he explained of his early professional years. "I wasn't pursuing the Paul Reubens career; I was pursuing the Pee-wee Herman career." That career took off like a rocket.

He detailed a relationship early on that came to mean a lot to him, but it also began to impact his ambitions. "When we split up, I just made a conscious decision and went, ‘I’m not doing this again,'" he shares.

"I not only wasn’t going to be openly gay, but I wasn’t going to be in a relationship," he adds. "My career would’ve absolutely suffered if I was openly gay, and so I went to great lengths for many, many years to keep it a secret."

First born as a character in iconic Groundlings improv theater, Reubens brought Pee-Wee Herman to the stage for his own show in 1981 and became an almost instant phenomenon. By 1985, he'd starred in his first film, with a second on the way.

One year later, he launched his own Saturday morning series, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, which would run until 1990. For a time, he was one of the most well-known and popular entertainers in the world -- until the arrest and the mugshots, showing a shaggy-haired Reubens.

"It really backfired when I got arrested," Reubens says in the new documentary. "People had never seen a photo of me other than Pee-wee Herman, and then all of a sudden I had a Charles Manson mug shot."

"It’s shocking what hideous, horrible, mean stuff people say and think about me," he continues. In the immediate aftermath of the arrest, Reubens was torn apart in the tabloid media, derailing his career for nearly a decade, though he did find some memorable smaller roles in projects like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Murphy Brown, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, though not as Pee-Wee.

And while he had produced enough episodes of Pee-Wee's Playhouse across five seasons for syndication, CBS opted to cancel those after his arrest. While he was slowly able to revive his career, and even the Pee-Wee Herman persona, there's no doubt the arrest and subsequent speculations about his personal life had a massive impact on him.

A police raid on his home in 2002 that uncovered his collection of vintage homoerotic art also stuck after some of it was categorized as child pornography. Reubens, who collected a wide variety of things throughout his adult life, found himself charged with one misdemeanor count of possession of child pornography.

Through a plea deal, he got the material reclassified as having nothing to do with child pornography, and pleaded guilty to possession of obscene material. He was ordered to attend mandatory counseling and had to register as a sex offender for three years.

While most believe that public perception of what happened was overblown and unjust, it nevertheless hung as a shadow over the remainder of Reuben's career.

This is a large part of why Reubens said he wanted to peel back the curtain of his life with this documentary. In a recording made the day before his death, he explained he wanted to make the film "to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn’t," said Reubens.

"I wanted people to understand that occasionally where there is smoke, there isn’t always fire," he added. "I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love and my desire to entertain and bring glee and creativity to young people and to everyone."

Reubens died July 30, 2023, at 70 years old while battling both myelogenous leukemia and metastic lung cancer.