Elijah Wood speaks out on child abuse in Hollywood
Elijah Wood is speaking out about "darkness in the underbelly" of Hollywood. "There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind," he said.
Wood, who began his acting career at 8 years old and starred in such films as "Avalon," "Radio Flyer" and "Forever Young" before hitting puberty, spoke to The Sunday Times about an epidemic of powerful people in Hollywood preying on young children -- comparing the practice to the U.K.'s own scandal involving late TV personality Jimmy Savile.
"Jesus, it must have been devastating," Wood said. "Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organized. There is darkness in the underbelly -- if you can imagine it, it's probably happened."
"These things probably still are happening," he said. "From my reading and research, I've been led down dark paths to realize that these things probably are still happening. If you're innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed, people with parasitic interests will see you as their prey."
As for Wood himself, he credits his own more positive experiences as a child actor to his mother, who was "far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career," he said. "I never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on. This bizarre industry presents so many paths to temptation. If you don't have some kind of foundation, typically from family, then it will be difficult to deal with."