r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 12h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

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u/RaylanGivens29 9h ago

That’s different than being a hero and ending up a villain. He was a villain the whole time, people just didn’t know, right?

Or am I just reading too much into it?

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u/Key_Molasses4367 9h ago

Yes, you are right. His shows were popular, he made a ton of money, a lot of which he contributed to charity. But as far back as the 1960s, a coworker saw him with a young teen girl in his bed in a hotel room. The people riding the gravy train of the hundreds of millions of dollars he brought in knew he was totally into sex with teen and preteen girls, and they either ignored or enabled it. Reports to police in some town he lived in went nowhere - he was friends with them.

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u/Goregoat69 9h ago

He got drummed out of the Uk wrestling scene for creepy boasts about young lasses. Adrian Street gave him a right bad kicking during a match, and he never wrestled again. 

He probably got off lightly getting it from Street, there were some legit old school Catch wrestlers about in those days, that could easily have crippled him. No charity marathon antics after a few heel hooks….

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u/Key_Molasses4367 8h ago

I'm glad to know someone showed some integrity and kicked his ass. There's a podcast called Crimes of the Centuries, which is always in depth, super well researched and his episode is stomach churning. For every one person who reported his crimes against children and teens, there were higher ups who just dismissed the reports with a "no, he's just making jokes, he doesn't do anything wrong" response. The police department one was particularly awful - Saville was taking 3 or 4 young teen girls out of halfway houses and trading cigarettes and money for sex. When someone reported their suspicions, the cops said, nope, nothing to see here, with no investigation. The girls didn't report him themselves at the time, because they were young, troubled and so low in self esteem and amenities, they figured at least we're getting cigarettes from this perv. Saville knew exactly what he was doing by using them.

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u/Goregoat69 8h ago

There was an enquiry done after it all came out, the full thing was available on the UK gov website (or maybe the NHS, not 100%) and it was eye opening how many times his antics were downplayed or ignored, mainly because of the charity stuff. 

At one point the creepy bastard was basically given free access to Broadmoor, ffs. 

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u/Key_Molasses4367 52m ago

Yep. He was truly evil and the number of people who deliberately overlooked his obvious pedophilia should be in a special circle of hell.

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u/fresh-dork 3h ago

girls, boys, dead girls, boys, anything you can think of

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u/kacperp 4h ago

I think his main reason why he was doing so much charity was because he was such a terrible person. He was catholic and he basically tried to buy his way into heaven. He did a lot of bad things so he thought that doing good deeds will make it ok.

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u/Key_Molasses4367 44m ago

Crimes of the Centuries played a clip of an interview he did in which he specifically stated he was doing good works to overcome any bad things he "may have" done. So nevermind the horror and humiliation I've inflicted on vulnerable children and teens, God will forgive me because I raised millions for charity! It's beyond sickening.

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u/tanjawheeler 6h ago

No I think you’re onto something real there. There’s a difference between a secret villain and someone who genuinely changes over time. The quote only works if the fall is actually a fall, not just a reveal.

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u/Hellknightx 5h ago

People at large didn't know, but people inside the industry and especially at the BBC did know. And they protected him, which makes it worse.