David Walliams was last pictured enjoying a coffee with a friend just weeks before the allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him.
The former Britain’s Got Talent judge, 55, is accused of grooming and sexually assaulting young girls as young as 15 in the earlier days of his career. In a bombshell report by The Guardian and ITV, Walliams is accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour and harassing women in the workplace.
Walliams has denied all the allegations against him and said he is ‘not a sexual predator’ and has ‘not broken the law’.
The TV presenter and comic was last seen in public on October 14 when he was photographed on a coffee date with businesswoman Adrianna Martin. The two sat outside a coffee shop in London’s Pimlico, enjoying drinks and catching up.
Walliams was accompanied by two of his dogs and hugged Martin goodbye before going their separate ways.
At the time, Walliams was not named as the ‘famous man’ seeking an injunction from the High Court to stop sexual misconduct allegations from being published by Independent Television News (ITN) and Guardian News and Media (GNM), publisher of The Guardian.
He argued that he was at risk of suicide if the allegations were to be made public.
A judge ruled against the actor’s request but did not give The Guardian and ITV permission to reveal his name immediately, so that he would have time to appeal. When the deadline for the appeal passed on Monday without him filing, both outlets went ahead with their detailed report on Tuesday.
Over the course of a year, they spoke to several women who claim to have been subjected to grooming and inappropriate behaviour from Walliams when they were teenagers.
One woman, named Jade, alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Walliams when she was 15. He allegedly contacted her online and then, after meeting in Soho, he brought her to his home where they ‘kissed’.
Jade told The Guardian: ‘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.’
Another woman claims she went along to a recording of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent and brought along a 13-year-old friend. When they arrived, they allegedly found two other girls, aged 16 and 17, were also backstage without an adult present.
However, representatives for Fremantle and Syco, which produce BGT, insist they had no knowledge of any of the allegations against Walliams and had never received any complaints.
In his statement responding to the allegations presented in the report, 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 inevitable when 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.’
Walliams, a bestselling author, was axed from BGT in 2022 after he was heard making offensive remarks about contestants in leaked recordings.
He was later dropped by HarperCollins, which published his books, over allegations that he harassed female colleagues, which he strongly denied.