Louis Theroux names ‘worst person’ he’s met, and it’s not Joburg’s Maleven
British filmmaker Louis Theroux has met some truly terrifying individuals, but the worst of the lot isn’t a South African criminal.
Louis Theroux, the British journalist, has named the worst person he has encountered during his 30-year documentary filmmaking career, and surprisingly, it isn’t the notorious Hillbrow hijacker Maleven.
Theroux revealed that the disgraced British entertainer Jimmy Savile holds the darkest place in his memory. As reported by LadBible, the journalist opened up about his lingering guilt over their past professional interactions.
Louis Theroux: Why Jimmy Savile is the ‘worst person’
Over three decades, Theroux has immersed himself in some of the world’s most dangerous subcultures. South Africans will vividly remember his 2008 trip to the country for Law and Disorder in Johannesburg.
During that shoot, he came face-to-face with Maleven, a wanted criminal who casually threatened to put children into microwave ovens to extort money. While Theroux noted at the time that Maleven “did not seem normal”, the hijacker – who has since died according to Theroux – doesn’t take the top spot for pure evil.
That grim title belongs to the late Savile, who was later exposed as one of the United Kingdom’s most prolific sexual predators. Theroux first profiled the eccentric TV star in the 2000 documentary When Louis Met Jimmy, long before the full, horrifying extent of his crimes became public knowledge.
Theroux told LadBible:
“My mind tends to go to Jimmy Savile, basically because when I met him, I was making a documentary about him – his crimes had not been discovered. So it’s that strange dissonance of later finding out that he’d done these dreadful things, that he’d been a serial sex offender, and not knowing at the time.”
A career built on the bizarre and brutal
The revelation is particularly striking given the sheer volume of controversial figures Theroux has interviewed. He has never shied away from the uncomfortable, famously breaking bread with white supremacists, extremists, and violent gangs.
His compelling portfolio includes deep dives into complex geopolitical issues, such as his exploration of ultra-Zionists in Israel and the 2025 documentary The Settlers, which examined the lives of Israeli religious-nationalist groups.
Despite brushing shoulders with warlords and neo-Nazis, it is the betrayal of trust by a beloved public figure that haunts him most. Theroux has previously admitted to feeling a heavy sense of responsibility for having viewed Savile in a friendly, amicable light during their time together.
Fans of the acclaimed documentarian can catch his latest work, Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, currently streaming on Netflix.