What are the allegations against David Walliams?

Multiple women have accused David Walliams of sexually inappropriate behaviour and grooming including when they were teenagers.Walliams was named in a joint ITN and Guardian investigation on Tuesday as the celebrity who sought a High Court injunction to prevent the allegations about him from being published.The comedian and children’s author, 55, is alleged to have abused his power and status to contact young women and try to engage in “inappropriate and exploitative sexual activities”.The Guardian and ITN published a bombshell set of allegations against the celebrity.Walliams denies all the allegations but admits he “at times behaved thoughtlessly” towards people with whom he was involved in casual sexual relationships.He had brought legal action against Independent Television News (ITN), which produces news programmes for ITV, Channel 4, Good Morning Britain and Channel 5, and Guardian News and Media (GNM), publisher of The Guardian, to stop them publishing details of a joint-investigation.But after that bid failed, details of the allegations were published by the two news organisations. They include the following claims:• One woman described her alleged encounter with Walliams at 15 years old as a “sexual assault”, while multiple women have accused him of “grooming” them when they were teenagers.• One said that 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.• He had a sexual relationship with at least one junior employee at HarperCollins, and pursued another.• The women at the centre of the investigation, who do not know one another, all allege they were targets of unwanted sexual advances.• Several sources alleged inappropriate behaviour towards women at both the prime-time show Britain’s Got Talent (BGT), where Walliams served as a judge, and his publisher HarperCollins.Read More•Several young women alleged that he initiated contact with them when they were teenagers, and used his fame and status to establish relationships with them.‘It was sexual assault, it was grooming’ One alleged victim, a schoolgirl who the investigation has named Jade, says that Walliams contacted her after she commented on a photo of him on MySpace in 2007.Although Jade was aged just 15 at the time, she claims that Walliams asked for her number and called her within minutes from a withheld line, before they continued to speak via email, often via her school account.They soon met in person in Soho, where Jade confided in Walliams that she’d been sexually abused when she was younger.They then went to Walliams’ house, where Walliams kissed her and attempted to initiate sexual contact.When she pulled away, she claims Walliams said that they should wait until she was 16 and to keep in contact.She told the investigation: “I struggle with it sometimes – if I think about it a bit too much, about the reality of what happened.“It’s a sexual assault. It’s a grooming. It’s completely wrong in every way.”His lawyers and representatives have been contacted for comment.In response to this investigation, the Guardian said Walliams sent a letter to reporters working on the investigation saying : “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.”Walliams rose to fame for his comedic partnership with Matt Lucas, with whom he co-created the BBC sketch show Little Britain.He was a judge on the television talent competition Britain's Got Talent (BGT) between 2012 and 2022, and has had huge success as a children’s author, having sold more than 50 million copies.His career has also been dogged by controversy, with numerous allegations of inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct. He left BGT amid reports that he had made sexually explicit and derogatory remarks about contestants.This led to a legal dispute that was settled in 2023. HarperCollins ended their publishing contract with Walliams in 2025 following an internal investigation into his alleged inappropriate behaviour and harassment towards junior female staff. He denied the claims, saying he had "never been informed of any allegations raised against him” or been asked to cooperate with the HarperCollins investigation.