Jimmy Savile, ‘Weird’ in Plain Sight: Lulu’s Memory of a Star Everyone Seemed to Accept
The first time Scottish singer Lulu found herself crossing paths with jimmy savile, it was not a dramatic moment, not a headline, not a warning bell that anyone around her seemed to hear. It was the kind of encounter that happens in busy careers—brief, ordinary, easy to move past. But the feeling it left behind, she says now, was simple and stubborn: “He was weird. ”
What did Lulu say about Jimmy Savile?
Lulu has said she thought jimmy savile was “weird, ” adding there was “no doubt about it, ” and that she “couldn’t believe” how successful he was. Speaking to Louis Theroux on his podcast, she described a sense of disbelief that someone she viewed as “ridiculous” could be so widely accepted and so prominent in public life. She also said she “never had any issues” with him and that the serial sexual abuser “certainly had nothing to do with me. ”
Her recollection lands in a place many people recognize: the uneasy space between an instinct and the social pressure to stay quiet. “Listen, I would never have said that then, ” she said, signaling how different it can feel to speak in the present tense about a figure once treated as untouchable. Lulu framed that restraint as learned behavior. She said she was taught early on to think about what she was going to say before she said it, and that her mother used to tell her to be secretive. “So I am very outspoken, but I have been trained, within an inch of my life, to be careful, ” she said.
Why were their paths crossing so often?
Lulu, whose real name is Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, said that during her career she often “ran into” Savile because he was “everywhere. ” The remark is less a logistical detail than a description of an era when celebrity worked like gravity: the biggest names pulled everyone into the same rooms, studios, and schedules.
She was in her teens and 20s during the height of Savile’s early career on the music show Top Of The Pops, which she also appeared on. That overlap mattered: it put two working lives on the same circuit, in an industry built on quick introductions and constant movement. In that kind of environment, a person can become familiar without ever becoming known—and discomfort can be filed away as part of the job.
Lulu said she cannot remember whether she appeared on Savile’s show Jim’ll Fix It, which saw him fulfil the wishes of children who wrote in with requests. What she remembers clearly is who stayed close: she said her talent manager, Marion Massey, was by her side always. “I’m sure you understand why I’m so grateful to her, ” Lulu said.
What does her story reveal about silence, caution, and survival?
Lulu’s comments do not attempt to rewrite history as a detective story where everything was obvious. Instead, they sit inside the messier truth of how many people move through powerful spaces: they notice something off, but the culture around them does not reward naming it—especially not out loud, especially not then.
In Lulu’s telling, her caution was not only professional; it was personal. She said she thinks her upbringing explains why she did not like Savile, adding: “I’ve got a feeling that it’s because of my childhood, as I mentioned to you. If you come from a dysfunctional childhood, you become very alert. ” In that sentence, “alert” becomes a form of protection—an internal alarm that does not necessarily come with an instruction manual for what to do next.
The wider context, which emerged long after the era Lulu is describing, is that Savile’s crimes came to light only after his death. The text notes he was one of the biggest stars in television during his life, but following his death in 2011, it was revealed he was a prolific sex offender with hundreds of victims. It adds he is now believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders, and that he died in October 2011, aged 84, having never been brought to justice.
Those facts, placed beside Lulu’s personal recollection, create a hard contrast: a person can feel uneasy around someone, even strongly so, and still live inside a world that continues to reward that person with attention, platforms, and legitimacy. Her disbelief—“how is this man so successful?”—is not only a question about one entertainer. It is a question about the machinery that elevates people, and the costs that can be hidden behind the curtain.
What is being done now, and what remains unresolved?
Lulu’s remarks are part of a public conversation taking place through an interview setting—speaking to Louis Theroux on his podcast—where memory is not treated as courtroom evidence, but as human testimony: what someone saw, felt, and didn’t feel able to say.
Her account also underscores the role of close protection in an industry that often confuses access with safety. When Lulu points to Marion Massey “by my side always, ” she is not offering a policy proposal; she is describing a practical reality of how some performers navigated risk. In her case, gratitude becomes its own kind of statement—an acknowledgment that proximity to power can require constant calculation.
She also situates her own career in the long arc of public life: since the beginning of her career in 1964, Lulu has achieved 10 UK top 10 singles and a UK top 10 album. She is known for “Shout, ” as well as “I’m A Tiger” and “Boom Bang-A-Bang, ” which was a joint Eurovision winner in 1969 with the Spanish, Dutch and French entries, who all tied on 18 points. The details matter because they show how many decades of work can contain moments that are small at the time but heavy in hindsight.
Back in that first passing encounter she describes—one more run-in with someone “everywhere”—Lulu says she felt something was off, but she also says she would not have said so then. That gap between instinct and speech is where many stories live. It is also where one question lingers, long after the studios empty: how many people felt the same alertness, and learned the same caution, while the world kept applauding?
Image caption (alt text): Lulu reflects on jimmy savile and why she thought he was “weird. ”
