by Patrick Davies

Tags: The xx, Grimes

Status Quo: 'We were all suspicious of Jimmy Savile'

'Everyone was groping everyone', says Rick Parfitt

 

Status Quo: 'We were all suspicious of Jimmy Savile'

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Status Quo star Rick Parfitt has spoken out about the band's suspicions over the behaviour of shamed Top Of The Pops presenter, Jimmy Savile.

The rock veterans appeared on the show 106 times, and frontman , Rick Parfitt, confessed he was not surprised when the allegations of sexual abuse against Savile surfaced earlier this year.

Parfitt told The Telegraph: "A lot of us, like everybody else, we all kind of knew. We were all kind of suspicious of Jimmy Saville. We all felt, 'There’s something not right there.

"But we didn’t know what, and it was kind of in the back of our minds. But you could never quite suss him out. We did so many Top of the Pops, so many Jim’ll Fix Its."

He went on to say that he never actually witnessed Savile doing anything untoward, but spoke of how the presenters of the show would always have different dressing rooms to the artists.

"If you watch those early editions of Top of the Pops, all the girls there have got skirts up to their chins. There were a lot of girls knocking around downstairs and people would invite them down to the dressing room.

"There were loads of little birds about at Top of the Pops, of course there were. What used to happen upstairs in the upper echelons where Savile and the other DJs were – well, I never, ever knew where their dressing rooms were.”

According to Parfitt it was common place for girls as young as 17 to accompany both presenters and bands back to their dressing rooms.

He admitted: "I think that anybody would be forgiven around that time if you’ve got a girl in the corner – everybody was doing that.

"There were loads of girls, and they were willing. They were all coming into the dressing room – you’re walking into a rock band’s dressing room with a skirt up to your chin."

The 'Rockin' All Over the World' hit-maker also told the newspaper how the culture on the show meant that "everyone was at it."

"Everybody was messing about. Of course we were. Everybody was groping everybody – that was it at Top of the Pops, everybody was at it.”

Status Quo were speaking following the recent premiere of documentary 'Hello Quo'.

Meanwhile they have also finished making their own Bond-style comedy rock film 'Bula Quo'. The film features 12 Quo tracks and Parfitt also tries his hand at acting- performing stunts such as leaping through glass windows.

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