Jim Davidson feared Operation Yewtree arrest would end his career but won't sue
Comedian Jim Davidson thought his Operation Yewtree arrest would end his career, but says he won't sue the police.
The former Generation Game host, 69, in 2013 was arrested in connection with the police operation set up amid the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal, but faced no further action over the allegations made.
Remembering the media furore at the time, Jim said in a new interview: “They were all camped outside my house. Loads of people. They were all outside my house for ages and ages and ages.
"And I remember coming around the corner as I'd come back from The Co-op and there was a live TV crew there."
Speaking to Nana Akua on GB News, Jim went on: “I'm looking back at it as a laugh, but I thought it was a done deal."
'We're governed by a bunch of Charlies in a land no longer fit for a king'Recalling his arrest, he said: "Suddenly I was arrested at Heathrow. I had a load of accusations. And me and my lawyers went and got all the evidence and gave it to the police. And they basically said, 'Jim, there's not going to be any more action, so no further action (NFA)."
"It was a bit scary because I thought it was a done deal.
"And I thought that the public, although there's ones that say, 'oh no smoke without fire', I thought the public would think enough is enough.”
Jim said he has no plans to sue the police as they were doing their job and "did a good job."
“But I don't like being accused of something. I haven't done. And it really knocked my stomach up a bit," he added.
The former Big Break presenter has in the past spoken about the toll of the ordeal.
Speaking on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2018, he said: ‘It didn’t leave me undamaged, it was pretty traumatic, and it has affected me."
He went on: "I now won’t have a conversation with a woman in a room without someone else being there."
Davidson has been married five times, to wife Michelle in 2009.
During his interview with Piers, Jim said the four divorces left him £60m out of pocket.
Jim Davidson 'gutted' as he 'splits from fifth wife' after 14-year marriageHe told Piers: "It’s how much money I’ve spent over the years. I don’t know, I’m not sure, getting on to 50, 60 million must have passed through my hands."
A year after his Operation Yewtree arrest, which he described as the "darkest" time in his life, Jim went on to star in Celebrity Big Brother, going on to win the show.
“It made me think the majority of the public were on my side," he told the Express.