John Lydon: 'BBC bosses silenced me over Jimmy Savile'

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John Lydon, 70’s punk icon has accused BBC bosses of censoring him when he tried to tell the world about rumours of child abuse by Jimmy Savile

The former Sex Pistols star heard speculation shortly after shooting to fame that the popular DJ was a serial paedophile, reports the Express

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He mentioned the gossip in a radio interview but the quote was edited out of the original broadcast and it only became public following the exposure of Savile as a sex abuser after his death in 2011.

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Now Lydon has blasted officials who were running the BBC during the mid-1970s and accused them of deliberately trying to silence him.

He tells publication The Times Magazine, “I was telling it like it is! On and off, the BBC found reasons not to play my records and, on and off, they found reasons not to listen to me at all.”

Savile, a BBC Radio stalwart and popular TV presenter, was unmasked as a sex offender following his death at the age of 84, and a subsequent inquiry revealed he abused more than 400 victims dating back 54 years. The scandal has had far-reaching consequences in the U.K., with police launching investigations into several of Savile’s former colleagues and other public figures who were big in the ’70s.