Depraved paedophile Rolf Harris branded his abuse victims as ‘slimy little worms’ and bragged about wanting to have sex with young school girls, his ex-promoter revealed before the disgraced star’s death.
In a twisted display of contempt for the women he sexually assaulted, Harris used to dismiss his victims as money-grabbing ‘worms’ hell-bent on getting their hands on his £16million fortune.
And chillingly, the convicted sex offender also told his music promoter Chris Brosnan, about how he wanted to have sex with two 14-year-old girls.
The disgraced entertainer, who has died aged 93 after a battle with neck cancer, made the shocking comments while being taken back from the BBC at the height of his 90s fame when he lusted after the two children.
Mr Brosnan, who has previously described himself as ‘like an adopted son’ to the Harris family, had been driving the star home.
Musician Chris, pictured with his young son and Rolf and Alwen Harris, has spoken of how he lived with the disgraced star and once idolised Harris as a father figure. Now, he sees things differently
Chris Brosnan, who has previously described himself as ‘like an adopted son’ to the Harris family, revealed the depraved remarks
The letter Brosnan released showed Harris’ lasting contempt for the women he had abused, dismissing them as money-grabbing ‘worms’ hell-bent on getting their hands on his £16 million fortune
He said: ‘I remember I was driving Rolf back from the BBC, and there were two schoolgirls in uniform walking along. I’m driving the car and Rolf out of the blue just says, “Jesus, couldn’t you just f*** the pair of them?”
Mr Brosnan once idolised Harris as a father figure. But his view was shattered after the former TV star was jailed in 2014 for molesting a string of children – including an eight-year-old autograph hunter.
Repulsed by Harris’s actions, Mr Brosnan released a letter in 2015 penned by the sex predator from his jail cell in Stafford Prison which laid bare his contempt for his victims.
In the explosive letter, he showed his lasting hatred for the women he had abused, dismissing them as money-grabbing ‘worms’.
For years, like others caught up in the charismatic orbit of Harris, one of the world’s best known and most trusted entertainers, Mr Brosnan had turned a blind eye to the multiple affairs and the routinely predatory comments, dismissing his behaviour as that of a man who shot to fame during a bygone era. Rolf was ‘just being Rolf’.
‘When Rolf made the comment about the schoolgirls, it was like a kick to my gut,’ he explains. ‘I said: “My God Rolf, they’re just kids. What are you thinking?” Yet I never in a million years thought he was acting on those urges. Like a lot of his fans, I was in denial.
‘I’d been living on Planet Rolf for so long, my own view of the world became warped and twisted. I wanted the lovable, cuddly Rolf,’ Mr Brosnan previously told Mail On Sunday. ‘Yet in reality he was the worst kind of monster.
‘With Jimmy Savile, everyone knew he was a weirdo but Rolf was a national treasure. He charmed the public and he charmed me. This was a man who represented wholesome entertainment.
Father figure: Brosnan is pictured playing the didgeridoo onstage with Harris in 2004. Brosnan was Harris’ ‘adopted son’, the digeridoo player so close to the star that he spent more than a decade living at his home
Revelation: Last month, Brosnan released an extraordinary letter to The Mail on Sunday, written by Harris in Stafford Prison. It is addressed to ‘Bear’, the nickname Harris gave to 6ft 5in Brosnan
Self-pity: In the letter, Harris bemoans the prospect of two more years of prison life, calling the food ‘awful’
‘I saw him give awards to kids for bravery, we were on stage together in front of 70,000 cheering fans at Glastonbury, even the Queen adored him, for God’s sake. Yet all the time he was manipulating and destroying the lives of his victims.’
Harris was sentenced to nearly six years in prison in 2014 for 12 indecent assaults on four girls, including one aged seven or eight.
But he was released in 2017 after serving just three years behind bars. He spent the rest of his time as a recluse in his £5million home in Bray, Berkshire.
Speaking on the documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding In Plain Sight which aired on ITVX earlier this month, Mr Brosnan added he was ‘furious’ at Harris over the comments he made about the two young girls.
‘The impact of that, and not only was I furious, I was, not only was I angry about it, I fully expressed the anger that I felt, and I pulled the car over and I said, “I can’t f***ing believe that you’ve just said what you’ve said.”,’ he added.
‘And he immediately went into, “I’m so sorry Bear, I shouldn’t have said that in front of you.”‘
Brosnan said he was ‘instantly’ drawn to the charismatic star after meeting him at a charity event in 1998.
Over a decade on from his arrest, many of Harris’s accusers have waived their right to anonymity to reveal how his assaults impacted them
The Rolf Harris Show, which ran from 1967 to 1971, helped propel Harris to huge UK fame
Rolf Harris leaves Southwark Crown Court as his niece Jenny Harris lifts her hand in front of cameras
Born in the East End to an alcoholic mother and an absentee father, Brosnan turned to music as therapy and self-taught himself several instruments, including the didgeridoo, the Aboriginal instrument Harris made famous.
‘You don’t meet many didge players in life, so when you do there’s an instant bond,’ he explains. ‘Rolf said to me “What are you doing next Thursday?” and invited me to play the didge with him at an event in Oxford Street. From that moment on, I was in the band.’
Brosnan was enamoured by the ‘fatherly’ side of his mentor.
‘I never had a dad and was craving a father figure. Rolf can be incredibly charming. I loved him. He’s a workaholic. We were on the road or I was driving him to TV shows or events. We were together so much, the bond formed quickly. There were some loving, healing times.’
Rolf was at the height of his fame. As the star of family shows such as Animal Hospital and Rolf On Art, he had bewitched generations of fans with his wholesome image.
Just as millions of fans still struggle to reconcile the image of the Two Little Boys and Tie Me Kangeroo Down singer with the sexual predator jailed for attacking girls, so too does the man who idolised him.
Harris’ daughter Bindi (pictured) has ‘suffered terribly’ according to Brosnan
‘It’s almost incomprehensible to me that the Rolf I saw charming the Queen or lighting up the faces of kids inside hospital is a disgusting paedophile,’ says Brosnan.
‘I saw the Queen make a beeline towards Rolf at one event and heard her say how thrilled she was to see him again. That’s mind-blowing stuff. But then there’s the flipside of fame. Things which would seem wrong in the “real” world are somehow tolerated in the parallel universe surrounding a famous person. People laugh things off that would horrify them if a “normal” person did it.’
While much has been written about Harris’s downfall, Brosnan is in the unique position of having lived in the basement of the Harris mansion in a flat dubbed the Bear Cave [Harris nicknamed Brosnan The Bear] from 1999 to 2009. ‘I was his son, chauffeur, Man Friday, confidante,’ he says. ‘When you are close to a celebrity, particularly one as loved as Rolf, it is a heady, seductive world to be in.
‘Once you are in the inner circle, it’s a special place to be. You breathe the rarified air of a star, and there were few bigger than Rolf Harris.
‘Everything revolved around Rolf. We all lived in his world. When I was down in the Bear Cave, I was a satellite. But as soon as I walked upstairs, I was back in the stratosphere of Planet Rolf.
Mr Brosnan revealed the sick letter sent to him by the pervert from his jail cell that sparked revulsion around the world
‘Rolf loves curry. Sometimes he’d want it four or five times a week. So we all had to eat curry. Whatever Rolf wanted, Rolf got. It was his world and we all lived in it. He’d been a celebrity for so long, he was used to being the focus of attention.
‘When you get famous, people pander to your every whim, not just in public but in private too. You are surrounded by people whose future depends on you so, of course, they will do and say anything to make you happy. You never question the “main man”.
‘I used to drive him everywhere in his Mercedes. One time he ran a joke past me. It was a sick gag about a woman being gang-raped by the Australian cricket team. We were driving to a corporate dinner and I said, “Rolf, you can’t tell that” and he said, “Why not? It’s bloody funny”.
‘I told him it was offensive and he was like, “Oh, OK, Bear.”
‘But when he got there, he told the joke anyway. Some of the women in the audience were so offended they complained.’
Jailed: Harris was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for 12 indecent assaults on four girls, including one aged seven or eight
After Mr Brosnan opened up to the star about his troubled childhood – including being abused – he was stunned when Rolf admitted that he, too, had suffered abuse by a teacher in his home town of Bassendean, Western Australia.
‘He told me the teacher would take him back to his apartment and show him porn and taught him to masturbate. He told me it was only afterwards, as an adult, he realised it was wrong. Then as a teenager, he worked at a mine in the middle of nowhere and woke up to find a guy molesting him. I said, “Rolf, have you had therapy to deal with this stuff?” He said, “No, I’m good.” ’
Brosnan says he believes the abuse ‘warped’ his friend’s mind. Once Brosnan moved into the Harris home and truly immersed himself in Rolf’s world, he was devastated to discover a man who compulsively cheated on his wife and considered all women ‘easy prey’.
‘There were the women, lots of them. He did it under his wife’s nose. For him, there was a thrill about not getting caught.’
One was Andi Kingston, best friend of Rolf’s wife Alwen. ‘Rolf was filming Animal Hospital and I’d drive him to and from the set, and on the way home he’d make me stop at Andi’s flat in Maidenhead, five minutes from the marital home. It was hard, because I was close to Alwen and yet Rolf expected me to keep his confidence about the affair.’
When Andi contracted terminal breast cancer, Brosnan would drive his boss to see her at a hospice. ‘When she died, Rolf said, “She’s at the funeral parlour in Maidenhead. I really should go and see her.” We stood by the open casket. Rolf was emotionless. I said, “Are you OK?” and he said, “Yeah, I’m all right. I’m quite glad it’s all over, really. It’s better off this way. I know it [the affair] hurt Alwen a great deal.”
‘And that was that. It was over. Rolf compartmentalises everything. His mistress died but he showed no emotion. I suspect he’s doing the same in prison.’
Brosnan says Alwen, a promising artist who studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, became a ‘sad and lonely’ character. ‘I loved Alwen, I still do. But she gave up so much to be in Rolf’s world. Her talents were always overshadowed by his.
In court, it was revealed that Harris had a long affair with Bindi’s closest childhood friend which she said started when she was 13. Harris is pictured arriving at Southwark Crown Court
‘We’d go to events and Rolf would be off flirting with women and she’d be sitting, totally ignored, at a table on her own. I’d sit with her and go, “He’s off again” and she’d smile and say, “Bear, I’ve been dealing with this for years.” I spoke to her recently and said, “How’s Rolf doing in prison?” and she said, “Oh, he’s in a nice room. He’s got a nice guy who’s sharing the room with him.”
‘That’s her way of coping. Everything is always wonderful and nice. She would never tell anyone her true feelings. She’s protected Rolf all her life and still is.
‘Their daughter Bindi suffered terribly. She lived in the shadow of her father and he betrayed her too.’
In court, it was revealed that Harris had a long affair with Bindi’s closest childhood friend which she said started when she was 13.
‘In some way, I blame the TV bosses for creating the environment where people like Rolf thought it was OK to see every woman as a sex object,’ says Brosnan.
‘Rolf hit on any and every woman. It was always, “Cor, look at the ***s on that”.
‘But I saw him do amazing things for charity and I saw how people’s faces lit up when he walked in a room. So, like everyone else, I was guilty of not speaking up when I should have.
‘He used his art to encourage women to get naked. He always drew from photographs, so he would tell a woman, “God you are so beautiful I’d love to do a naked portrait of you,” and most women were so flattered, the kit came off.’
Harris’s lecherous behaviour was blatant and BBC presenter Kate Humble, then a researcher on Animal Hospital, was one who signalled her disapproval.
‘Rolf was in hair and make-up and Kate was in the same room talking about the show. Rolf put his hand down and ran it up the leg of the woman who was doing his hair and said, “You’re so bloody gorgeous,” and the woman went, “Ha, ha Rolf, very funny.” A lot of women brushed off his advances because it was Rolf being Rolf.
‘When he left the room, Kate looked at the hair lady and said, “I can’t stand him. Every time he walks in the room, I cringe. He’s like that towards women all the time.” ’
Brosnan eventually moved out of the Bray home ‘to save my sanity’. ‘I had to get off Planet Rolf. It was a sick world and it was making me sick.’
