In the upcoming HBO docuseries 'Pee-wee as Himself', which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Paul Reubens recalls the "painful" memory of being falsely labeled a "pedophile" following his two arrests.

"Pee-wee Herman" star Paul Reubens, who died in 2023, has posthumously revealed he was gay in a new documentary unveiled at Sundance Film Festival.

Los Angeles — On the day before his death in 2023, Paul Reubens, the children's entertainer better known as Pee-wee Herman, recorded a rueful statement about being labeled a "pedophile" after his bombshell arrests on indecent exposure and obscenity charges in the 1990s and 2000s.

Reubens died in 2023 at the age of 70 after a six-year battle with cancer. Into’s Henry Giardina described him as “an unapologetically odd, decidedly queer-coded performer who brought a little weirdness into our humdrum lives for decades.”

I was secretive about my sexuality even to my friends… [out of] self-hatred or self-preservation,” the late actor said in an interview with HBO.

Better known for his broad smile and silly voices, Pee-wee Herman actor Paul Reubens becomes rawly emotional in the documentary “Pee-wee as Himself,” which premiered Thursday at the Sundance Film

Culled from 40 hours of interviews and thousands of hours of archival footage, Matt Wolf's doc gives Paul Reubens his own posthumous spotlight.

But it seems that Reubens still has a few things to get off his chest, albeit from beyond the grave, in an upcoming documentary entitled, “Pee-wee as Himself.” PEOPLE Magazine reported the film premiered on Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival.

Nearly a year and a half after Pee-wee Herman star Paul Reubens passed away from acute hypoxic respiratory failure at the age of 70, the late actor came out as gay during one of his final interviews.