David Walliams accused of grooming teenagers and using celebrity status to pursue young women

David Walliams, one of Britain’s best-known television personalities and top-selling children’s authors, has been accused by multiple women of using his power and celebrity status to prey on young women and teenagers for sex.

The allegations include accounts from two women who said they first met the star when they were 15 years old.

Both women, now in their 30s, said they had been groomed by Walliams and that the experience had affected them for nearly two decades.

Walliams, 55, has also been accused of abusing his position to pursue women through the family television show Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) and at his former children’s book publisher HarperCollins, where he had a sexual relationship with a junior member of staff.

The allegations were unearthed in a joint investigation by the Guardian and ITV News, which heard from 30 sources with first-hand accounts of his conduct.

Details of the allegations can finally be revealed after a court rejected a legal attempt by Walliams to prevent their publication.

Last week, the High Court heard that Walliams had made two attempts to take his own life after the news organisations first put the women’s allegations to him in May.

Lawyers for Walliams, who denies any wrongdoing, said his response was not a sign of guilt but rather a fear of public shame stemming from deep-rooted trauma caused by childhood experiences.

Sara Mansoori KC, the barrister representing Walliams, told the court that if the allegations were published, the comedy star would try again to kill himself. She argued that, under human rights laws, the court had an obligation to remove the threat to his life by preventing publication through a lifelong injunction. 

This would also, she acknowledged, effectively prevent the women from telling their stories.

The court heard that Walliams had been sectioned the week before the hearing. He remained in a psychiatric hospital when the judge dismissed the case last Tuesday.

On Monday, Walliams’ lawyers confirmed he would not appeal the ruling, allowing the organisations to publish the women’s stories.

The High Court judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, accepted there was a genuine and grave risk of suicide. He also recognised the “probable effect” of the situation on Walliams’ teenage son, which he described as “grave”.

However, Nicklin said the investigation “concerns matters of substantial public interest” and found that the court did not have an obligation to protect Walliams from acts of self-harm.

He said the state had taken steps to do so by detaining him under the Mental Health Act. “The state is already taking substantial and effective measures to protect the claimant. He is receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment in an environment which significantly reduces the likelihood of suicide.”

He added that the evidence “establishes that the hospital can provide significant protection” and “that treatment may modify his mental state”.

He further ruled that an injunction would represent “an exceptionally serious interference” with press freedom. “It would prohibit the defendants from publishing the results of their investigations into allegations of serious wrongdoing by a prominent individual.” 

 He added: “It would also prevent the sources whose accounts form part of those investigations from communicating their experiences to the public.”

The allegations

With the court case concluded and after months of careful consideration, the Guardian and ITV News are now publishing the allegations against Walliams.

Walliams remains in a psychiatric hospital. In a personal letter to Guardian and ITV News journalists, denying the allegations and detailing their impact on his mental health, he wrote: “Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with.

“And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something I never did.” He added: “I am not a sexual predator. I have not broken the law, but I am devastated that some of the women I met 10 to 20 years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me.”

Walliams’ lawyers said he also denied the allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.

The Guardian and ITV News reviewed emails, social media messages, contemporaneous notes and newspaper articles. Sources with knowledge of Walliams’ behaviour towards young women included young models and fans, aged between 17 and 22 at the time, who said he messaged them unsolicited on social media. They also included multiple people who had experienced or witnessed his alleged harassment of young women in the workplace.

Many of the women who spoke out said their interactions with Walliams had been distressing and that they remained affected by the experiences years later.

The allegations, which span the years from Walliams’ breakthrough success with the BBC sketch show Little Britain to his emergence as a Saturday night fixture on BGT, raise questions for the television industry, which has faced a series of scandals in recent years over the inappropriate behaviour of some of its best-known male stars.

There are also questions for publisher HarperCollins. In December 2025, the company severed ties with its bestselling author, reportedly after an internal investigation uncovered “inappropriate behaviour” towards young female employees. Some of the alleged behaviour dated back years.

A spokesperson for HarperCollins referred the Guardian to a statement issued in December 2025, which said the company had decided not to publish any new titles by Walliams and that it took “employee wellbeing extremely seriously”.

The production companies that make BGT and ITV, which broadcasts the show, provided separate statements. Each said they were not aware of any complaints about Walliams.

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