Paul Reubens Denies He is ‘a Pedophile’ and Extra Bombshells from New Pee-wee Herman Doc

Within the new two-part HBO docuseries Pee-wee as Himself, Paul Reubens shares his closing phrases with the world — delivering a collection of bombshell revelations alongside the best way.

Greatest recognized for his iconic alter ego, Pee-wee Herman, Reubens sat for greater than 40 hours of one-on-one interviews, candidly discussing all the things from his sexuality to the arrests he described as “big footnotes” in his life — and the surprising means he selected to say goodbye.

Listed below are a few of the most stunning and poignant moments to anticipate from the documentary.

Reubens comes out as homosexual

Though Reubens by no means publicly got here out throughout his lifetime, director Matt Wolf says it was one thing the comic all the time meant to do. “It was a choice he had made however one he was very ambivalent and anxious about,” Wolf tells PEOPLE on this week’s difficulty. “He was very involved about having his sexuality be a defining issue of who he was.”

For the documentary, Reubens mirrored on a “long-term, very severe” relationship with a person named Man shortly after faculty. They lived collectively, shared a cat and, in accordance with Reubens, the connection impressed a lot of his comedy. “I seemed throughout the room and noticed somebody and fell in love immediately,” he recalled. “I simply went, ‘That’s him. That’s the man.’ ”

In the end, Reubens prioritized his profession and moved ahead hiding his sexuality and forgoing all future relationships. “I used to be as out as you might be, after which I went again within the closet,” he stated. “My profession completely would have suffered if I used to be brazenly homosexual. So I went to nice lengths for a lot of, a few years to maintain it a secret.”

Reubens discovered a lot of his early inspiration in drag

Throughout his time on the California Institute of the Arts, Reubens started exploring various types of creativity. “It was simply this little protected group of individuals,” he recalled. “Everybody was seeming to determine ‘Who am I as an artist?’ ”

For Reubens, efficiency artwork was what resonated. “Sitting within the dorm at 2 a.m. in drag, simply hanging out — you may suppose that I used to be a drag queen. And you may be proper,” he stated. “Doing drag and ‘passing’ — I can draw a line from that to having an alter ego and being profitable in having that character ‘go’ as an actual particular person.”

Reubens says his arrest for indecent publicity in an grownup theater was a ‘main footnote’ in his life

“If I used to be conflicted about sexuality… fame was a lot extra difficult,” Reubens mirrored within the documentary. He added that his 1991 arrest for indecent publicity in an grownup theater in Sarasota, Fla., grew to become a “main footnote” in his life. “It actually backfired after I received arrested, and folks had by no means seen a photograph of me apart from [as] Pee-wee Herman, after which hastily I had a Charlie Manson mug shot,” he stated. “It’s stunning what hideous, horrible, imply stuff individuals say and take into consideration me.”

Years later, police raided his house and seized his assortment of classic homoerotic artwork, together with supplies they categorized as little one pornography. 

“When he would focus on his [2002] arrest with me, he stated the overwhelming feeling was shock,” Wolf recollects. “From my viewpoint, it was extremely unjust. So it was straightforward for me to put all of it out clearly so that individuals might collectively acknowledge he had been mistreated.”

Reubens did not let the filmmakers know he was dying of most cancers

Regardless of the depth of their conversations, Wolf says he had “no purpose to consider that Reubens was considering his mortality.” In actuality, Reubens had been quietly battling lung most cancers for six years, confiding solely in a small circle of shut pals.

“It was extremely stunning,” Wolf says of Reubens’s dying, which occurred only one week earlier than they had been scheduled to document a closing interview. “I discovered that Paul died on Instagram together with everyone else.”

Shortly after his passing, Reubens’s assistant shared with Wolf a non-public recording he had made the day earlier than he died — his closing message to the world. “Greater than something, the rationale I wished to make a documentary was to let individuals see who I actually am and the way painful and tough it was to be labeled one thing that I wasn’t . . . a pedophile,” he stated. “I wished one way or the other for individuals to know that my entire profession, all the things I did and wrote, was primarily based in love.”

Throughout one in every of their interviews, Reubens instructed Wolf, “Loss of life is simply so closing. To have the ability to get your message in on the final minute, or in some unspecified time in the future, is unbelievable.”