Tom Jones: I was victim of sex harassment too
SIR TOM Jones has revealed that he was sexually harassed at the start of his pop career.
He said he had spurned all advances and walked out during the ‘terrible’ experience.
Sir Tom, 77, said that unwarranted sexual attention is as rife in the music industry as it is in the film industry – and that men as well as women are targets.
Asked in a Radio Live interview whether he had experienced any harassment, the Welsh singer paused briefly and replied: ‘Yes. At the beginning, yes.
‘There were a few things like that. But you avoid it. You just walk out... But what’s tried on women is tried on men as well… they try it on.’
Sir Tom, who rose to fame in the mid-Sixties, when he was in his 20s, did not make clear whether his harasser was male or female. He said: ‘Things have always happened in the music industry as well.
‘There’s been people complaining about publicists and different things that they’ve been expected to do to get a record contract, just like they do to get a film contract.
‘It wasn’t bad, just somebody tried to pull... it was a question and I said “No thank you”. But then you think, “Well, I’ve got to get away from this person and it can’t be like this”.’
Sir Tom, now a judge on ITV’s The Voice, said he was left reeling by the approach
‘There’s always been that element there that people with power sometimes abuse it; but they don’t all abuse it, there are good people,’ he said. Asked about the current Hollywood scandal he said he was convinced that justice would triumph in the end.
‘Things happen in showbusiness, and sometimes things are covered up and then they come to light and other people come forward – it’s like taking the cork off a bottle.
‘Things come out that maybe should’ve come out years ago, who knows. But that’s the way it is with showbusiness, you are in the public eye, and that’s it, you have to take the good with the bad. But justice will out. If you’ve done something wrong, you’ve got to pay for it, or prove that you haven’t done anything wrong.’
Sir Tom married his childhood sweetheart Melinda Trenchard when both were 16. She died last year, aged 7 . Despite his numerous infidelities over the years, he described her as the love of his life.
‘They try it on with men as well’