Watch ITV News’ documentary, David Walliams: Power and Silence, on ITVX and YouTube.
Investigation by Lucy Watson and Imogen Barrer, documentary directed, shot and edited by Kenny Fillingham and produced by Eloise Swinton, words by Elisa Menendez and additional reporting by Amanda Nunn.
- A three-year joint investigation by ITV News and the Guardian reveals allegations dating back to 2003 that David Walliams preyed on teenage girls and young women for sexual purposes.
- One woman described her alleged encounter with Walliams at 15 years old as a “sexual assault.”
- Multiple women accuse Walliams of “grooming” them when they were teenagers. One says he began contacting her when she was 15, after meeting her at a Little Britain fan event, before starting a sexual relationship with her at 17.
- Walliams is also accused of inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment at Britain’s Got Talent and at the publisher, HarperCollins.
- The investigation reveals he had a sexual relationship with at least one junior employee at HarperCollins – and pursued another.
- Walliams denies all allegations against him, stating: “I am not a sexual predator… I have not broken the law”.
When schoolgirl Jade* commented on a photo of David Walliams on MySpace in 2007, the last thing she says she expected was to receive a private message from the Little Britain star himself.
Jade ignored it until, she says, she received another message.
“You get this celebrity approaching you – that’s a whole different level of attention,” said Jade. “Then you think, I must be a bit special in a way.”
Jade described what Walliams allegedly did to her when she was 15 as “grooming” and “a sexual assault”.
She is one of multiple women who allege Walliams abused his power as a celebrity to prey on them for sexual purposes when they were teenagers or vulnerable young women. The women, who do not know one another, all allege they were targets of his unwanted sexual advances.
Dozens of other sources say they experienced or saw evidence of behaviour they allege was inappropriate, including at Britain’s Got Talent and his former publisher HarperCollins.
The allegations are being exposed after a joint investigation by ITV News and the Guardian spanning more than three years, which Walliams attempted to block with a High Court injunction. Walliams denies all allegations, including any criminal behaviour.
Many of the women and men ITV News has spoken to have asked for their identities to be protected. Some fear legal retaliation from Walliams, or damage to their careers. Their pseudonyms are marked with an asterisk.
“That’s when I pulled away and said no… I didn’t want to be touched in that way at all. I was only a 15-year-old”
One night in mid-2007, Jade commented on a picture of Walliams on a public MySpace page. Jade said she then received a private message from the comedian. Her date of birth was visible on her profile, showing that she was 15 years old, she claims.
“‘Thanks for the comment’,” Jade recalled his message said, “and then he signed it ‘D’ with a kiss.”
She ignored it, questioning why a celebrity would want to speak to her. At the time, Walliams was at the peak of his Little Britain fame and had just won the Pride of Britain Award for “Britain’s Most Influential Public Figure” after raising more than £1 million for Sport Relief by swimming the English Channel.
About 10 minutes later, she said she received another message from him saying: “Are you there?” This time, Jade replied. She said he then asked for her number and called her within minutes from a withheld line. The call was mostly “chit-chat” like “where I lived, what I do in school,” recalled Jade. After that night, they continued to speak via email, often via her school account, she said.
Shortly after Walliams’ 36th birthday in late August, Jade was in London and said they arranged to meet in Soho. When she walked in, the TV star was already there and had ordered her a coffee, she said. A drink she didn’t like, but she said nothing.
“I was very, very shy,” Jade said. “I was quite quiet. So, it was a lot of him asking questions. It was a bit about school, but it wasn’t long until he asked me if I’d ever had sex before. I said I hadn’t. I didn’t like talking about that sort of stuff.”
Jade said she confided in Walliams that she’d been sexually abused when she was younger. She remembers he said he was “sorry to hear that.”
They weren’t in the café long before the comedian suggested they leave, Jade said. She remembers him then taking her down an “alleyway” to say goodbye.
“He sort of edged into the corner where we couldn’t be seen and that’s when he kissed me,” she recalled. “His tongue was used. I don’t want to use the word aggressive, but he was quite… he was excited.”
Jade said Walliams then invited her to his house. She agreed to go.
“I think I was still naive to what he wanted to happen. I didn’t think he would want sex, especially that quickly,” she added.
They picked up his Aston Martin from Brewer Street car park, before Walliams drove them to his house, she recalled. They went into the kitchen and he stood leaning against the counter. Jade said she chose to sit on the sofa.
“He asked me to come over and gave me a hug. That’s when he kissed me again,” Jade recalled.
“He lifted my top up and sucked on my breast and then tried to put my hand down his trousers. That’s when I pulled away and said ‘no’. He had an erection at the time.
“I wasn’t ready for sex. I didn’t want to do that – with him or with anyone… I didn’t want to be touched in that way at all. I mean, I was only a 15-year-old.”
When asked what his response was, she replied: “He said that we should wait until I’m 16 and to keep in contact. That comment will always stick out in my mind… That’s a very strange thing to say. He obviously wanted that one thing.”
Jade left Walliams’ house and didn’t see him again but says the impact of that experience has stayed with her for 19 years.
“I struggle with it sometimes – if I think about it a bit too much, about the reality of what happened,” she added. “It’s a sexual assault. It’s a grooming. It’s completely wrong in every way.”
Jade claims Walliams used the allure of his celebrity status to cultivate a relationship with her and believes he abused his position.
To contact us about this story, email investigations@itv.com
“When you see someone on the TV, you sort of think you know them in a way. I think you trust them more, don’t you?” she added.
“So, I think it was more of a shock that he can use that, to do that sort of thing. He has that power. It makes you feel small. It makes you feel weak.”
It angers Jade that Walliams has remained a TV star for so many years and she refuses to let her children read his books.
“He used that fame to get women,” she insisted.
“I look at my daughter who’s near that age now and to think of a 36-year-old man being in any way like that with her makes me feel sick. He’s disgusting, he’s horrible, he’s a groomer.”
Walliams strongly denies that he had any sexual contact with Jade. He says he rejects any allegations of criminal activity and says he has never engaged in the grooming of young women.
“Hi, how are you? How old are you now? What are you up to? Are you still writing? David x”
Jade was not the first 15-year-old Walliams had contacted.
At the time Jade says he was communicating with her, he was also in touch with Alex*.
Alex first met Walliams in 2004 when she was also 15. He was 32.
She alleges he “groomed” her over several years, helping with her comedy scripts, offering to get her work experience in TV and sending her tickets and backstage passes to Little Britain shows. When she was 17, they had sex for the first time.
It was in January 2004, when 15-year-old Alex was studying for her mock GCSEs and Walliams was a rising star in the comedy world, that she first met him. Little Britain had made its TV debut just a few months earlier. Back then, Alex wanted to work in comedy and Walliams was a hero of hers, so she went with her mum to a fan event at the Virgin Megastore, in Piccadilly, London. There, Walliams and his co-star Matt Lucas were signing autographs, dressed up as their characters Lou and Andy.
Alex’s mum took a photograph as her daughter handed comedy sketches she’d written to Walliams, along with a covering letter with her contact details. Alex recalled Walliams said to her: “You’re a very attractive lady, aren’t you?” She described the way he looked at her as “really intense”.
A few days later, there was a call to the family landline. Alex picked up the pink phone she had in her bedroom.
“Hi Alex, it’s David Walliams off the telly!” she recalled hearing on the other end.
She said they spoke for at least an hour that night and as soon as she got off the call, she wrote down the details on lined paper. She still has those pages of notes.
At the top of the first page, she had scrawled: “David Walliams phoned me!!”
Alex said they talked about her age, school and her exams. She said he also offered to help get her work experience.
Her notes from that call say: “He said, ‘right, so you’re what, 15, 16?’ I said, ‘I’m 16 in May’.
“He said, ‘I’m sure you’re a very clever girl.’ He said he thought my scripts were ‘very funny’.”
Walliams offered to read more of Alex’s work. “He also said if you’ve got any new scripts or info email them to me,” she added.
Alex said the actor then gave her his email address – the same one he gave to Jade – telling her that he “trusts” her not to give it to anyone else. Alex followed up with an email thanking him for his call and for reading her scripts.
“I was just full of hope and excitement in terms of my career and that someone thought that I was good,” she said. “He was doing that to ultimately try and sleep with me.”
Afterwards, Walliams sent a postcard to her home address. On the front was a photograph of Walliams and Lucas as their Little Britain characters. Walliams had drawn a heart on it.
On the back, he’d written: “Thanks for your email. Stay in touch. Good luck with your exams and keep writing. David x”.
So, Alex emailed Walliams again asking for career advice and help with her comedy scripts. Walliams replied saying he was keen to stay in touch but preferred to speak on the phone rather than via email. The teenager felt spurred on by his encouragement and sent him more emails with her sketches for several months. Alex said Walliams phoned her multiple times – sometimes their calls lasted up to an hour.
On one occasion, Walliams replied saying he couldn’t read any more of her scripts because he was too busy. And, in March 2005, he asked if she would stop sending them.
His email read: “I’m sorry but I won’t be able to read your scripts. I can’t read unsolicited material and I would appreciate it if you didn’t send me any more. I wish you luck. David Walliams.”
Alex said: “He was the one spending hours on the phone to me, telling me and promising me that I could do all this stuff. And then he shut it down – which was confusing for me because he had been so approachable and chatty before and I just didn’t want to let a connection go.”
But she continued to email Walliams. Their communication had been happening at the peak of Little Britain’s success.
Even back then, jokes were being made about the comedian’s dating habits on the national stage. At the British Comedy Awards, in December 2004, host Jonathan Ross told the audience: “The Comedy Awards is 15 years old. 15 years old. And like all 15-year-olds, it’s drunk, it’s unpredictable and it’s probably going home with David Walliams.”
ITV News and the Guardian understand Ross did not write that joke. He only delivered it.
In October 2005, Alex emailed the actor telling him she was going to be in London for a gig and invited him along with her friends. This time, he replied.
Walliams wrote: “Hi, how are you? How old are you now? What are you up to? Are you still writing? David x”
In her reply, Alex joked back that she was now old enough to drink – but she was in fact only 17. She mentioned the subjects she was studying at college and sent him some recent photographs of herself.
Walliams later asked how much school she had left. Then, over a series of emails, he began complimenting her.
“Those pictures are really lovely by the way,” one email read.
“Will you send me some more?” he asked later. She did.
“You are gorgeous,” another read.
In one email, she told him about her plans for the evening. She was going to watch TV, play the guitar and have a bath.
“You in the bath is a nice thought,” he replied.
“Hmm… you in the bath with me is a nicer thought… hehe,” she responded.
Walliams wrote back: “I’d like that. Call me.”
Alex did. That was when, she said, things “properly shifted” and “the tone had massively become sexual.”
She said he then began asking her to send him sexual photos of herself.
“At first I just sent photos of my face, and then it was photos of my underwear,” Alex recalled.
“He would put a lot of pressure on me and was telling me how to pose, and then actually be naked…
“I remember quite clearly one of the times he wanted a photo of me… of my bum and my back… I would be on the bed turning around and my back arched… I started off in my underwear and then he heavily suggested that I remove it.”
“I felt that he was asking for more than I felt comfortable with,” she added. “I hadn’t done that before and I really could feel the imbalance at that point already.”
Walliams says he does not recall and does not believe he asked Alex to send him sexual pictures of herself and believed she was 18 when they were emailing in 2005.
Nearly two years after their initial meeting, Alex agreed to meet Walliams in person. But this time it was at his home in Belsize Park, London, where they had sex. She was 17. He was 34.
“I remember him just being this looming figure. He’s a big guy,” she recalled. “I remember him coming at me and kissing me. It was a really pushy kiss. I remember he just shoved his tongue in my mouth. I just hadn’t ever experienced anything like that before… then, I kind of followed his lead, really. We went on his bed and we had sex.”
“I remember he didn’t use a condom. I remember clocking it and thinking that’s not good but I was too young… I really don’t think I would have had the ability to get the words out at that point to say ‘don’t do that’,” Alex added. “It just felt very pushy and very for him. I felt like a prostitute, essentially. I was there for that reason and then I was out.”
Alex says she had consensual sex with Walliams on three separate occasions when she was 17 and 18. One of those times was oral sex.
“I never said no, but I felt unable to say anything or have any control in that situation once I was with him,” she added.
Walliams says he cannot recall but believes he used a condom and believed that each time they had sex she was 18. He denies he was pushy towards Alex and finds the suggestion “distressing”, saying she raised no concerns at the time.
When asked how she feels now, Alex replied: “I want to vomit. I hate him. My body reacts when I think about it. It’s like a trauma response. I think I was groomed. 100%.”
At this point in his career in 2006, Walliams’ Little Britain was getting audiences of up to nine million at a time, but Alex had started to distance herself from the star, she said, refusing to meet up with him for sex when he asked via phone or text. She said Walliams continued to pursue her for the next two years.
In May 2007, Alex mentioned to Walliams that she was in a pub in London, and she says he drove there to see her. Alex recalls him calling her over to his car to “beg” her to have sex with him. When she refused, she said he asked her to get in his Aston Martin and perform oral sex on him. She refused again.
Walliams says he recalls Alex suggested going to his house to continue drinking with her friend, which he declined. He does not recall and doesn’t believe that he suggested having sex with her.
Although Alex said the sex with Walliams was consensual, and she was above the legal age of consent, she believes it was wrong.
“We met when I was 15,” she said. “He was a figure of authority to me and someone that I looked to for guidance and help. And he used that power and abused that power the minute he felt he just about could – and that it was just about safe to.
“Ok, it’s legal to have sex when you’re 17, 18, 16 even. But the context of who you’re having sex with – if that person is double your age, if that person has promised you things and is in a much bigger position of power than you both in age, in work, in finance, in stature, in size… I really don’t think that’s okay.”
Walliams denies grooming Alex. He claims he wrote to her at 15 to encourage her writing. He does not recall offering her tickets to his shows or work experience. He says he is “mortified to learn” that their “brief, consensual relationship has caused her sadness.”
“He would plead with me to share a bed with him”
ITV News has spoken to two former models who were also teenagers when Walliams contacted them. One of the women wants to remain anonymous, but the other does not. Lilly Creightmore wants to be seen.
In 2003, Lilly was 18 when the then 31-year-old Walliams first contacted her. He’d seen her with her mum in the audience of a Little Britain radio recording, but it wasn’t the first time he’d spotted her. He’d seen her when she appeared on the TV show, Model Behaviour, when she was 16.
Walliams later saw Lilly again at an Agent Provocateur lingerie event. Lilly said he told her that he’d contacted the production company that made Model Behaviour and asked them for her contact details. She said the agency resisted initially, but he persisted. Lilly then received a card from Walliams at her home address. On the front was a black and white photograph of a little girl dressed up as an angel.
Walliams wrote: “When I saw you at the Little Britain recording, I was enraptured. Then when I saw you in Agent Provocateur, I so wanted to speak to you, but amongst all the frilly knickers I couldn’t find the words. I’d love to take you out sometime. I know we’ve never spoken but you seem lovely. David Walliams.”
Like several of the women ITV News has interviewed, Lilly was a big comedy fan. She agreed to meet Walliams and said she made it clear to him that she was not interested in him romantically. Instead, they became friends.
Back then, Lilly was a vulnerable teenager. Her mother struggled with mental health issues, so Lilly either lived in foster care or with her grandparents. At one point, when she was between homes and had nowhere to live, Walliams offered her his guest room. But when Lilly arrived, she found there was no spare bed, so she slept on the sofa.
But every night he would ask her to stay in his bed, she said.
“He definitely crossed the line physically in moments, when I was young, trying to coerce me into sleeping with him,” Lilly added. “He would plead with me to share a bed with him and paw at me, trying to make me feel sorry for him.”
She said her refusal to have sex with Walliams sometimes made him angry, and he became rude to her.
“When I was staying with him those first few days, it became apparent that I didn’t feel safe there,” Lilly added. She said she ended up leaving to go and stay somewhere else.
Lilly stayed in contact with Walliams on and off for five years. He offered to help Lilly with her career, she said, suggesting he could help get her a job at the BBC. She wanted to become a photographer and said that the actor bought her photography books and offered to introduce her to his artist friends.
During that time, Walliams won a series of prestigious accolades including Baftas, Royal Television Society Awards, British Comedy Awards and Rose d’Or Awards. At the end of 2006, he was invited to Buckingham Palace where he was commended by Queen Elizabeth II for swimming the English Channel.
In 2007, Lilly said he invited her to Australia while on his Little Britain tour. She said she’d go but that she was not interested in anything romantic or sexual happening. His response shocked her, she said. Lilly recalled that he “hit the roof”, “flinging insults” at her and said he accused her of using him. Lilly said she didn’t ever have sex with Walliams.
ITV News and the Guardian found a photograph of Lilly and Walliams at a 2003 celebrity charity event. When it was shown to her, she said: “I was really uncomfortable there… Poor baby.”
“The thing that upsets me the most is that I was coming from a vulnerable situation as a young adult… and I think as soon as he got to know me, he saw that, and thought I’d be easy to persuade or be able to manipulate,” she added.
“He was making me feel special, plying me with gifts and then disregarding me when he didn’t get what he wanted.”
When asked what she is accusing Walliams of, she replied: “Grooming me. He was pursuing me at a vulnerable age and place in my life for sexual gratification. I didn’t give him that.”
“I remember him messaging me once saying: ‘You’re such a good friend, never going to the papers about me,” she added. “He obviously knew what he was doing was wrong and inappropriate.”
Looking back at her 18-year-old self, Lilly described herself as living “in a time where men were men, they did what they did, and you just had to find a way to survive that”.
“But now we know that’s not what men should do,” she said.
Walliams says he does not remember messaging Lilly to tell her not to go to the papers and did not act inappropriately. He says he did not “target” her because she was “vulnerable” or “young”. Walliams says he believed his friendship with Lilly was a “special one” and he denies the offers of help or gifts were attempts to groom, manipulate or coerce her into sleeping with him. He says he feels “devastated” by her account.
“I remember… feeling him come up really close behind me and the hairs going up from the back of my neck”
Like Lilly, Ella* was another model Walliams contacted out of the blue. She was 19. He was 36.
Ella said he called her in December 2007 after seeing her in a magazine and getting her number from her agent. The TV star left her a voicemail, which she described listening to as “surreal”.
“This is David Walliams, I am a great admirer of yours from afar, I would love to take you for dinner,” she remembers it said.
Flattered, Ella agreed to meet him, on the condition she could bring her friend. He took one of his friends along too.
“I was quite a sheltered 19-year-old, had only recently moved to London,” she explained. “On the one hand I thought he was likely gay, and the other, it was just so tempting because I’d never met a celebrity before.”
Following the dinner, Walliams sent Ella a handwritten card and a large bouquet of roses to her student house.
He then invited her to a celebrity party at Supernova Heights – his multimillion-pound home in Primrose Hill, London. Initially, she didn’t want to go but a different friend asked her to take her along. When they got there, it was a small get-together with other famous people.
“I had picked up on the fact that these quite high-profile celebrities felt uncomfortable in me and my friend’s presence,” said Ella. “And one of the guest’s wives did pull me aside at one point, and was like, ‘you’re very young. Be careful, be careful’.”
Ella said Walliams kept insisting on giving her a tour of his house. She said she repeatedly refused but eventually relented. When they were upstairs away from the group, Ella said he tried to kiss her.
“I remember walking into his bedroom with him and feeling him come up really close behind me, and the hairs going up from the back of my neck,” she said. “I turned around and he’d placed his hands either side of the window. And he’s a big man. It’s quite intimidating.
“He lent in for a kiss and I just remember going ‘eurgh’ and ducking underneath his arm and running away.”
She said she felt “vulnerable” and “intimidated,” adding: “I would’ve been scared if I’d been on my own with him.”
Despite rejecting his advances, Ella said he didn’t give up.
“I’ll never forget this because it was one of the most surreal things that’s ever happened to me,” she explained.
“I remember him coming to sit next to me… And he just lay down, put his huge head on my lap… And [was] holding my face and saying, ‘please don’t leave, please don’t leave, please stay with me’. He was begging me to stay.
“This went on for a while. And we kept insisting that we wanted to leave.
“And then something just shifted in him… it was basically, like, get out. And I never heard from him again.”
She describes what happened that night as “unwanted physical touching and emotional manipulation”.
Describing how she feels about it now, Ella said: “My overwhelming emotion is relief. I feel like I dodged a bullet… because I know my story fits a certain pattern.”
Ella feels the way Walliams acted was “an abuse of power, undoubtedly” due to the way he contacted and pursued her at a young age.
She added: “I guess the thing I find most galling and infuriating is that it’s the systems around him that have enabled this behaviour, and that needs to stop.”
Walliams says that after he made a “clumsy pass” at Ella, he made no further approaches. He denies putting his head in her lap. He claims he had no intention of intimidating or making Ella feel uncomfortable.
“If you have celebrity status, why can you not get women closer to your age range?”
The year Ella went to Walliams’ house – 2008 – was the year his writing career took off, and when he published his first children’s book. In 2010, he married a supermodel, although they would separate and divorce five years later. And in 2012, his profile grew even further, when he joined Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) as a judge and was on national television every weekend, attracting another legion of young fans. Fans like Sarah* who grew up watching the show.
Sarah was 18 when she met 44-year-old Walliams in 2016. She’d been invited to sit in the audience of a BGT show by a female friend, who had been chatting to Walliams on social media since the age of 17.
As his guests, the girls were given special seats behind the judges – Walliams, Aleesha Dixon, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell.
On her train journey home after the recording, Sarah’s phone lit up showing that she had a new follower on Instagram. It was David Walliams. He sent her a private message, inviting Sarah and her friends to the show again the following day. But this time he asked them to his hotel for something to eat beforehand.
“It was just a weird situation,” said Sarah, adding that she was surprised by the invitation and felt she’d be “stupid to say no.”
She said they ate burgers, chips and ice cream in his hotel room and then went to the show. Afterwards, Sarah thanked Walliams on Instagram. He replied, suggesting that they keep in contact. They exchanged a few messages and he invited her to stay at his house in London, as she was thinking of studying in the capital. She agreed as long as her friend could come too.
Two weeks later, Sarah and her friend, who was also 18, went to his house after he’d invited them to stay the night. Sarah said she had no concerns whatsoever at the time.
“I wouldn’t even say I felt apprehensive or anything like that,” she explained. “He told us that he’d booked us for a spa day on the Sunday. And I thought ‘a spa’s going to be really fun, and we’ll have drinks, some food, and we’ll watch films and it’ll be a fun, little weekend’.
“That was literally all I thought it was going to be. I was so innocent.”
When they arrived at his home, Walliams had bought food and wine he knew Sarah liked, having asked her beforehand. He also cooked the girls pasta, she said.
“My favourite alcohol is rosé,” Sarah added. “He had bought my wine but he was just drinking water.”
The dynamic shifted when they sat down to watch films, Sarah recalled.
“He was stroking my bare leg on the sofa but I was just like, oh, it’s not that bad, in terms of what he could be doing,” she said.
At one point when Sarah went downstairs to the toilet, she said he followed her.
“He kind of put his arms around the back of my waist, pulled me in towards him and tried to kiss me,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘I’ve got a boyfriend, you can’t do that’.”
Sarah said she turned her head away, adding: “I was just like no thank you, absolutely not, also, you’re the same age as my mum. I was like, okay, this is where I need to get my wits about me now, and I need to be careful.”
After that, Sarah realised she’d drunk too much and some time later, the girls decided to go to bed. She remembers the three of them – Walliams, herself and her friend – walking upstairs.
When they got to the third floor, Sarah said Walliams attempted to take her to the floor above, where his bedroom was, but her friend grabbed her other hand. She said the girls went to their rooms.
Sarah said she felt unable to leave the house, as she was unsure of where they were. She didn’t live in London and wasn’t familiar with the city.
“I could have run out the door, and I wouldn’t have known where I was,” Sarah explained. “I wouldn’t have known who to call. I wouldn’t have known what to do.”
To contact us about this story, email investigations@itv.com
Looking back now on the experience, Sarah questioned Walliams’ intentions: “If you have celebrity status, why can you not get women closer to your age range?”
Walliams strongly denies the suggestion he got Sarah drunk to have sex with her and does not recall anyone being drunk. He says he did not force himself onto Sarah and denies there was any sexual contact with her. He maintains both women were “friendly” the next day and “did not raise any issue” with him.
In the weeks that followed, Walliams continued to message Sarah’s friend asking if Sarah was interested in him because she’d cut all contact.
Eight months later, Sarah’s friend received a threatening letter from Walliams’ legal team. Walliams says he believed Sarah’s friend was planning to sell a false story to the papers.
The letter, seen by ITV News and the Guardian, reads: “Let us be absolutely clear, you are at a significant risk of committing a serious civil offence should you disclose, to the press or any other third party, private information concerning our client… Should you disclose our client’s private information… he will be entitled to issue a legal claim against you.”
“If that were me, I’d have freaked out because I think they were saying ‘we’ll sue you’,” Sarah said. “But I think all this should have come out a long time ago.”
She added: “If it does help someone, we’ve done what we needed to do.”
Walliams says allegations that he targeted teenage women and used his celebrity status to manipulate them to have sex with him are false.
“I know now it’s part of the pattern of inviting young girls and young women to his dressing room”
Another BGT fan, Abby Tomlinson, went to a recording of the show in 2015, when she was 17 years old. Walliams – then 43 – invited her personally after he sent her a message on Twitter. Abby went along with another 13-year-old girl.
When they arrived, she said they were taken to his dressing room where they joined two other girls, aged 16 and 17.
Abby recalled that she and the 13-year-old were left alone with Walliams in his dressing room, with the door closed. Lawyers for Walliams previously denied they were on their own and said his “door remained open at all times” – but Abby is adamant.
“That’s not what happened at all… The door was shut and we were alone with him,” she insisted.
“I know now it’s part of the pattern of inviting young girls and young women to his dressing room,” Abby continued. “It wasn’t just like a one-off thing… and I think that is a really concerning way for someone to act when they have this access.”
Abby put her concerns on Twitter in 2020. In a post, she questioned why the comedian had wanted to meet her at 17, maintained contact with her at 18, and renewed his attention to her at 19 by sending her a private message on social media saying, “looking good x”. She believes Walliams was using his celebrity status to pursue young women.
“It’s an open secret in the industry,” she claims, “everyone knows that it’s happening. I just think it’s kind of disgraceful that he’s still on TV.”
Lawyers for Walliams say he hosted guests of different ages, genders and backgrounds at BGT with no focus on young females. Walliams denies there is any “open secret” about his conduct.
“There was an envelope that had £300 in and a signed card… She said: ‘There’s your hush money’”
Concerns about Walliams’ behaviour were not only felt by guests attending the show, but among Britain’s Got Talent staff as well. ITV News and the Guardian have spoken to multiple former BGT staff members who say they felt his conduct was inappropriate.
One former junior employee, Mark*, recalled an occasion in which he was called to Walliams’ dressing room. He said when he walked inside there were two “very young” people in the room, but the entertainer was only wearing a towel. He’d just finished showering.
“I think there was a general sense on the production that David did what he wanted and that there was something sexual about how he behaved that was uncomfortable,” Mark added.
Despite feeling uneasy on several occasions, Mark didn’t report his concerns. At the end of each series, judges often gave their runners a thank you gift. Mark said he got one from Walliams which surprised him. It was an envelope containing £300 with a signed card.
Mark recalled: “When I mentioned that in front of one of the production coordinators – so quite a senior production staff member – she said, ‘oh, there’s your hush money’.”
He added: “The behaviour was known about… it feels wrong that it’s taken this long for this behaviour to start to be interrogated.”
Walliams denies he was “buying” Mark’s silence and there was nothing that needed “covering up.” Walliams says he tipped staff every year and the amount he gave Mark was no higher than normal. He describes his comments as “smear”.
Mark left the show in 2017 – the same year another employee, Amy*, worked with Walliams. She was 24 at the time. Amy says she overheard him referring to her as “the arse”.
“One of the other male crew had asked him for drink,” she recalled, “and he said: ‘Yeah get the one with the arse to bring it to me’…
“It made me feel small and almost disembodied. Like I was not a person, but just a body.”
She said she felt the need to “protect” herself and “avoid” the TV judge entirely while at work.
“The one interaction I had with him before I started avoiding him, [was when] he’d been staring at my chest rather than acknowledging me as a person,” Amy added. “And there’s just a vibe you get when someone is being predatory.”
“I didn’t like being in that environment – having someone speak about you like that and not having anyone bat an eyelid.”
Walliams says he does not recall making the remark and denies that he stared at Amy’s chest or was predatory. He rejects claims he behaved inappropriately or harassed young women in the workplace.
That same year, Walliams was awarded an OBE for services to charity and the arts. Despite concerns surrounding the presenter back then, the entertainer continued to be on Saturday night television for 10 series of BGT, winning the National Television Award for Best TV Judge four times.
But in 2022, Walliams stepped down from BGT after the Guardian published a transcript of a leaked recording in which he was heard making derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about contestants on the show. He later apologised for making “disrespectful comments” during “private conversations” with friends.
Walliams took BGT’s production company, Fremantle UK, to the High Court for misuse of private information and breaching data laws. Fremantle then apologised and agreed a financial settlement with Walliams.
In response to ITV News and the Guardian’s investigation, Fremantle UK said: “David Walliams left Britain’s Got Talent four years ago. During his time on the show, and in the four years since, no complaint has ever been made – either to Fremantle UK, the broadcaster or regulator, and we are not aware of any complaints having been made to any other external authority – regarding his behaviour.
“Nevertheless, if anyone feels they have been the subject of any impropriety or wrongdoing by anyone, we encourage them to come forward. We will treat any complaints seriously and investigate thoroughly and to the best of our ability. This has long been our policy in terms of protecting employees, freelancers, contributors and fans and absolutely remains paramount in our thinking and actions as a responsible television production company.”
Syco Entertainment, the company that created BGT, said: “Syco Entertainment had no knowledge of the allegations described and was not made aware of them at the time.”
ITV, which broadcasts BGT, said in a statement: “We are very sorry to hear about the concerns that have been raised. BGT is produced for ITV by Fremantle, an independent production company. Although ITV is the broadcaster of the programme, the producer has day to day responsibility for the running of the production, including all aspects of duty of care, and for ensuring compliance with all legal and regulatory obligations as well as ITV’s production and compliance guidelines.”
“If you went to his house, you had to go in a pair. You couldn’t go by yourself”
Before Walliams’ appearance as a judge on BGT, he had fast grown into one of the UK’s biggest-selling authors, with HarperCollins as his publisher. More than 26 million of his books have been sold in the UK alone – making £156 million in sales. Several of his children’s books have been made into TV shows, plays and movies. Walliams frequently toured the world for book events, meeting his adoring young fans.
But there were concerns about Walliams’ conduct towards women at that company too. ITV News and the Guardian can reveal that he had a sexual relationship with at least one junior employee – and pursued another.
One former staff member said: “In the job he had, he didn’t behave the way he should have done.”
Katie* worked at HarperCollins in 2015. One day, a young, female employee confided in her, she said, following a series of emails she’d received from the author.
“The girl was really junior,” explained Katie, “and she was like, ‘can I show you some messages?’”
“I just thought, they’re gross,” she added, “just not appropriate for an author to be messaging a member of staff like that…
“She was so young, I think that she would have been early 20s. She definitely wasn’t pleased about it, definitely wasn’t interested.”
Katie was so concerned about the emails the young woman had received, she said she raised the issue with two different departments.
“I told my line manager and we told HR… but because he was responsible for HarperCollins hitting their targets every year, nothing ever happened,” she said.
Walliams admits contacting the young woman and asking her to meet with him. He says at the time he was “heartbroken and lonely after his divorce and was hoping to meet someone”.
But amid growing unease at the publisher, Katie says normal working practices had to be changed around Walliams.
“It’s common practice to send the editorial assistants, or even the interns, to author’s houses to collect manuscripts, if they were really important financially,” she explained.
“But we would never send any of the girls on their own to his[Walliams’]flat. We never sent anyone on their own.”
Despite concerns, some young women at HarperCollins claim they were still asked to go to Walliams’ home on their own. In 2017, an intern – who’d met him at a publishing event – was later sent to his home by herself. Walliams admits he also had a sexual relationship with her.
The young woman later told colleagues that although the relationship was consensual, she felt it was an “abuse of power.”
Katie said: “I don’t want Walliams to get away with this sort of behaviour. I don’t want any man to get away with this sort of behaviour.”
Despite Katie and her colleagues’ worries, Walliams’ literary career continued to flourish. In total, he has published almost 50 children’s books and sold at least 60 million copies worldwide.
Helen* worked at the publishing house from 2016, in the Children’s Department.
She said staff felt that “you shouldn’t leave your intern alone with him.That he would try and get contact details.”
“There was an agreement – if you went to his house you had to go in a pair. You couldn’t go by yourself,” she added.
Helen often worked directly with Walliams at book signings. On one occasion, she was struggling to keep up with her workload, so asked for help. But she said her manager refused because she didn’t want any other female employees in the room with Walliams.
Helen recalled: “[My boss] said, ‘look, we need to keep exposure to a minimum, okay? None of them are coming down. You’re doing it by yourself. You’re not blonde.’
“And, I thought, okay, so I’m just kind of chucked in front of him as a human buffer. I have to do all this work because I’m not at risk.”
Helen said young women were “trying to protect each other because no one else was protecting us.” At the time, Helen explained, HarperCollins was “getting massive amounts of income” from Walliams’ books.
“It was just this big brand,” she said. “If he hadn’t been making them money, if he hadn’t been this big TV guy, they would have got rid of him. Because he would have just been some random creep called Dave.”
In 2023, the publisher began an internal investigation into Walliams’ conduct. At least five female members of staff spoke to the inquiry, which ended in 2024. But one woman who spoke to the inquiry reportedly left the company afterwards with a five-figure payout and a strict separation agreement in place.
In December 2025, HarperCollins announced it was ending its 18-year relationship with Walliams amid reports that he had been dropped over “inappropriate behaviour towards young women”. And in September 2026, the company went a step further by deciding to no longer publish Walliams’ back catalogue, phasing out remaining copies of his books on shelves, as well as e-books and audio versions available online.
Walliams denies that he sexually harassed anyone at HarperCollins or behaved inappropriately in the workplace.
In a statement responding to ITV News and the Guardian’s investigation, the company said: “HarperCollins UK has decided not to publish any new titles by David Walliams. The author is aware of this decision. HarperCollins takes employee wellbeing extremely seriously and has processes in place for reporting and investigating concerns. To respect the privacy of individuals we do not comment on internal matters.”
“He is that person, there’s no doubt… And it’s something that if we don’t talk about, people suffer in silence”
Ben* used to be a close friend of Walliams in the early days of his career, between 1997 – 2004. Ben still works in the entertainment industry
Like others, Ben believes the industry has shielded Walliams. “Money, fame, success… Everyone wants to be around it. Everyone wants to protect it,” he added.
In 2002, during the time he and Ben were friends, Walliams was a self-confessed sex addict. In his 2012 autobiography, Camp David, Walliams wrote that he had been suffering with depression at the time. He said: “I thought sex could take away my sadness. However, it just made it worse. And I sank lower and lower into despair. I had become a sex addict.”
Over the years, Ben said he witnessed a pattern to the way in which Walliams approached women.
“See a woman, think she’s attractive, find out how to contact her, send her flowers, take her out for dinner, invite her back to [his.] If she doesn’t come, be sad, phone her every day until she agrees that the next time she will come to his,” he explained.
“Someone shouldn’t be on television, shouldn’t have a publishing deal, shouldn’t have all this power, all this influence, all this ability to do things without criticism, without questioning, without any form of justice.”
The idea of staying quiet any longer doesn’t sit well with Ben.
“It’s when you hear those same things said time and time again, those same patterns, the same patterns of behaviour, the same cover ups from above, the same angry responses, the same legal letters sent threatening people – it’s always the same,” he said.
“It’s happening. He is that person, there’s no doubt… And it’s something that if we don’t talk about, people suffer in silence.”
Walliams denies the accusations made by Ben.
In response to this investigation, Walliams said: “Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with… I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret.
“And whilst a power imbalance is inevitablewhen one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did…
“I am not a sexual predator… I have not broken the law… I am devastated that some of the women I met ten to twenty years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me.”
The women who shared their alleged experiences with Walliams for this investigation say they no longer want to stay silent.
“I feel like it’s my duty to stop this happening, and I want to do it to protect my younger self,” Alex said.
“I want to do it to protect future people he could have interactions with. He just abused his power, massively… Being famous made him feel powerful.”
Jade is a mother of three now. Sometimes, when her children are watching TV, she says she suddenly hears Walliams’ voice in shows like Teletubbies.
“It’s kind of like my mother’s instinct of protection comes out and I feel angry… that someone should have to be reminded of something so awful for the sake of entertainment,” she said. “I’ve had to tell my son’s teacher he can’t read his books and he’s all over the things my daughter likes to watch.”
Jade said it makes her feel “small, worthless, like what he’s done doesn’t matter. A bit like he’s laughing at me…
“I feel like I can’t escape him, he can’t seem to be avoided.”
To get in contact with us about this story email us at investigations@itv.com
- If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised, help is available here.
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