First, he was accused of pursuing an alternative lifestyle (nothing wrong with that, and he wouldn’t be the first celebrity to do so); now it appears that, according to the London Free Press, Tinky Winky has really hit the skids:

Halloween took a bizarre and frightening turn in London this weekend when a man dressed as a children’s television character, a purple teletubby, robbed a woman at gunpoint near the city’s core.

London police say a costume-wearing, gun-toting teletubby confronted the woman near the intersection of Talbot and Mill streets just after midnight and demanded cash.

The woman, in her 20’s, gave an undisclosed amount of cash to the robber, who then ran south on Talbot.

“Help! That teletubby has my purse. Oh wait: that’s his…”

Now, you’d think a giant, purple character from a children’s show would be a less-than-ideal costume for someone looking to rob people at gunpoint, but apparently, the man knew what he was doing:

The woman wasn’t injured but her misfortune wasn’t hers alone. A second man dressed in costume was later stopped in the area by police and questioned — but police had the wrong teletubby.

“He was deemed not to be the teletubby we were looking for,” Const. Kevin Lui said. “Unfortunately, Halloween provides (robbers) more cover than any other night.”

The best part is the description of the renegade Teletubby:

The woman said the man who robbed her was between 6’2” and 6’4”, 200 to 240 pounds and had a muscular build, short, dark hair and was clean shaven.

Wow. Tinky really has changed his look.

(Tinky Winky photo by onemanhisdog, used under Creative Commons license.)