Andrew Neil has said he "suspected there was something amiss" when he spoke to Jimmy Savile during one of the DJ's most revealing interviews of his career.
In Netflix's documentary, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, which delves into how the disgraced presenter got away with being one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders, Andrew, 72, reflected on Jimmy's unsettling appearance on Is This Your Life? in 1995.
Andrew tried to scratch away at the truth behind Savile’s playboy image and his "unhealthy relationship" with his mother, but Jimmy used his persona of the 'zany DJ' to divert the questions.
The broadcaster reflected: "Jimmy Savile was a huge figure, but he was also an enigma. I had been with the Economist for 10 years, I made documentaries for the BBC, I was editor of The Sunday Times of London for 11 years.
"He'd never been interviewed by somebody like me. I suspected there was something amiss.
"We had found nobody who had done a kiss-and-tell and I should stress that the people doing the research were hard-bitten tabloid journalists.
"He said he had all these women chasing him, he had all these girlfriends, but our research team couldn't find a single woman, girl, teenager that he had dated. Not one.
"The only woman we could find that had played any part in his life had been his mother. And the more we looked at it, the more it seemed he had a rather unhealthy relationship with his mother."
The documentary then aired the clip which showed Andrew asking Jimmy: "Are we talking about a life, in the 60s and 70s, of lots of lovers?"
To which Jimmy said: "That's a long time ago. I've forgotten. I never have been a grass and a gentleman never grasses on ladies he's ever."
But Andrew persisted: "But we're not asking for names, we just wanna know if you live this sort of playboy life of a DJ."
Jimmy then pulled out a banana to distract the audience as the presenter asked him: "Why have you shied away from close relationships?"
He replied: "I'm quite happy to have a few close relationships tonight if anybody's not spoken for."
Andrew also questioned Jimmy on reports he had sat with his mother Agnes for five days after her death.
"It wasn't really in the macabre sense, it was in the good, fun sense. When she was here I had to share her with everybody and now I don't have to share her with everybody because I've got her all on my own now," he added.
Savile died in 2011 aged 84, having never been brought to justice and is believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
The director of the documentary, Rowan Deacon, has said the two-part series aims to examine the disgraced entertainer’s relationship with the British public and the establishment to explain how he was "hiding in plain sight" for so long.
