Actor Paul Reubens has publicly thanked ENTOURAGE star Debi Mazar for giving him the strength he needed to overcome the sex scandals that wrecked his career in the early 1990s.
The Pee-wee Herman creator pleaded no contest to public indecency after he was caught masturbating in a porn theatre in 1991 and then was involved in a child pornography scandal two years later.
Reubens struggled to cope with the double disaster - even though he knew he was innocent in both controversies - and found himself depressed and desperate until he met Mazar.
He tells Playboy magazine, "What finally pulled me out of my shell the first time was when I fell in love. I met a woman, an actress - Debi Mazar - at a movie screening at the end of 1993 and was just so incredibly smitten that it was like, 'Boom, I'm back!' It was so powerful; it was a gift.
"I would be all funky and dark, but she was able to just say a bunch of stuff to me, like, 'Come on, up, up, up, up!'"