David Walliams was till a number of years in the past one among UK showbusiness’s largest stars, with hit TV exhibits and a massively profitable kids’s writing profession.
A real family identify, Walliams appealed to household audiences as a decide on Britain’s Got Talent and was dubbed the inheritor obvious to Roald Dahl with dozens of best-selling books.
His sketch comedy exhibits Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, written alongside fellow comic Matt Lucas, had tens of millions of viewers.
However after damning revelations and allegations he misplaced his function at BGT, and has misplaced his publishing contract with HarperCollins. He denies the claims.
Here’s a take a look at his life and showbusiness profession.
David Walliams rocketed to fame within the early 2000s
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David Walliams was born David Williams to his dad and mom Peter and Kathleen in Wimbledon, south west London.
He tweaked his stage identify to distinguish from a peer with the identical identify at his theatre faculty. He later joined the Nationwide Youth Theatre in 1990 the place he met his future comedy accomplice and buddy Matt Lucas.
After a number of small tv appearances, Walliams and Mr Lucas skyrocketed to fame with their comedy sketch present Little Britain, which was broadcast on BBC 4 for 3 seasons between 2003 and 2006.
Little Britain stars David Walliams (left) and Matt Lucas in 2006
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The present was an instantaneous hit and its recognition led to Comedian Aid commissions and a two-part Christmas particular in 2006, in addition to a stay travelling stage present.
A decade later in 2010, Walliams and Lucas launched a second mockumentary tv sequence, Come Fly with Me.
The parody present noticed an entire host of A-listers make visitor appearances, together with Geri Halliwell, David Schwimmer, Rupert Grint, and Barbara Windsor.
The sequence was commissioned for a second season, however Lucas refused to partake, in line with Walliams in 2013, prompting the sequence to be cancelled.
However this did little to cease Walliams’ continued rise within the showbiz world..
Walliams proved that he had intergenerational attraction, pivoting from grownup humour in Little Britain to a second profession as a kids’s writer.
In 2008, his first e book The Boy within the Gown was launched and applauded by critics for its tolerance, freedom, and positivity.
The e book’s illustrations by Quentin Blake led many to attract comparisons between Walliams and Roald Dahl.
What adopted was dozens extra novels, brief story collections, and movie books. Some, like Mr Stink and Billionaire Boy had been tailored into musicals and screenplays, gaining worldwide recognition.
The books had been translated into 53 languages and by 2018, he was the UK’s single biggest-selling writer, making up 40% of all best-selling kids’s books bought that yr.
David Walliams was dubbed the inheritor obvious to Roald Dahl, promoting tens of millions of youngsters’s books
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Along with his work on Comedian Aid, Walliams participated in a variety of deep-water swimming stunts in support of varied charities.
He raised £1million in 2006 for Sport Aid after swimming the 21-mile course of the English Channel and simply two years later, swam down the Strait of Gibraltar in one other charity effort for a similar organisation.
Famously, he suffered from sea-sickness in the course of the swim, throwing up within the strait.
However his hardest problem was the 140-mile swim down the Thames from Gloucestershire to London. He raised greater than £1million within the extensively publicised Massive Splash Problem for Sport Aid in 2011.
Walliams was additionally named as an envoy for a variety of charities together with Cardiac Threat within the Younger, Rainbows Youngsters’s Hospice, and the Youngsters’s Belief, and was awarded an OBE by the late Queen in 2017 for his companies to charity and the humanities.
David Walliams swimming the course of the Thames in 2011
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From 2012, Walliams took his place on the judging panel of Britain’s Received Expertise, alongside Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon, and Simon Cowell.
He appeared on tv screens across the nation each Saturday and rapidly turned a success amongst household audiences.
From unpredictably urgent the Golden Buzzer to his quick-witted banter with head decide Simon Cowell, his function on the panel noticed him win Greatest TV Decide 4 occasions on the NTAs in 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
David Walliams alongside fellow judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, and Alesha Dixon in 2022
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Most famously, Walliams hit the Golden Buzzer for Lorraine Bowen in 2015 after she carried out her self-composed track “The Crumble Music”. The catchy tune had been given the crimson buzzer by all three of the opposite judges, however Walliams despatched her straight by means of to the semi-final.
The track later exploded and was even performed on BBC Radio 1 by Nick Grimshaw due to its sudden recognition.
David Walliams’ and his ex-wife Lara Stone in the course of the 56th BFI London Movie Pageant at Odeon Leicester Sq. on October 21, 2012
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Walliams started relationship Lara Stone in 2009, marrying her in 2010 at Claridge’s in London.
The couple share one youngster collectively – born in Could 2013 – and lived in a home previously owned by Oasis star Noel Gallagher in Belsize Park.
The pair divorced 5 years later in 2015, with Walliams citing “unreasonable behaviour”.
Walliams has known as himself “Britain’s most well-known bi-curious comic” and has mentioned he has experimented with males prior to now.
He has additionally hinted at being pan-sexual and recommended in 2024 in a podcast with Josh Szeps that he’d establish as non-binary if he had been youthful.
Matt Lucas and David Walliams on the Graham Norton Present
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Virtually twenty years after the discharge of Little Britain and one decade after Come Fly with Me, Walliams and Matt Lucas had been compelled to problem a public apology for his or her parady sketch exhibits.
Regardless of turning into cultural phenomenons and attracting 10 million viewers at their peak, the legacies of the exhibits confronted criticism.
Audiences have vocalised issues about portrayals of marginalised teams and folks with disabilities, in addition to doubtlessly dangerous stereotyping.
The exhibits additionally used blackface which sparked nationwide outrage from media retailers and prompted the BBC to tug the exhibits from iPlayer in 2020.
The programmes have since returned to the streaming platform, however have been closely edited to take away the racist and offensive characters.
Walliams issued a public apology alongside Mr Lucas in 2020, explaining that each “regretted” that they performed characters of different races.
The World of David Walliams
By then, Walliams had already carved a brand new path for himself exterior of his profession as a comic.
His work as a kids’s writer had earned him his personal attraction at Alton Towers, eponymously named The World of David Walliams.
The attraction was impressed by his books, that includes Gangsta Granny: The Experience, and different displays themed round his fictional tales.
However the attraction was not meant to be, with Alton Towers confirming the attraction could be completely closed from November 3, 2026.
David Walliams on the World of David Walliams
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The wheels started to return off in 2022 when leaked audio revealed that Walliams had made sexually express and derogatory remarks a few contestant on Britain’s Received Expertise at an audition present on the London Palladium in 2020.
The tv character was recorded referring to 1 contestant as a “c***” and saying of one other: “She thinks you wish to f*** her, however you don’t.”
He added: ““I do know, she’s identical to: ‘Oh, f***off!’ I used to be saying, she thinks you wish to f*** her, however you don’t. It’s the very last thing in your thoughts, however she’s like: ‘Yep, I wager you do!’ ‘No I don’t!’ I had a little bit of a boner, however now it’s going, it’s now shrivelled up inside my physique.”
His feedback had been picked up by microphones used to document judges’ feedback for spin-off exhibits and behind the scenes footage. While these feedback weren’t supposed for broadcast, the leaked audio compelled Walliams to problem an apology.
In a press release, he mentioned: : “I wish to apologise to the folks I made disrespectful feedback about throughout breaks in filming for Britain’s Received Expertise in 2020. These had been personal conversations and – like most conversations with mates – had been by no means supposed to be shared. However, I’m sorry.”
The language was deemed inappropriate by the manufacturing firm Fremantle and later David Walliams left the present, being changed by Bruno Tonioli.
The recent-mic incident triggered a row between producers and Walliams, with the latter suing the previous for breach of information, misuse of personal info, monetary loss, and psychiatric hurt.
They reached a decision in 2023 with Fremantle issuing an apology for leaking the personal conversations.
In December 2025, it emerged Walliams was now not an envoy for The Youngsters’s Belief
The kids’s writer and Little Britain star began working with the charity in January 2018, however the organisation confirmed it had parted method with the 58-year-old star ‘earlier this yr’.
A spokesperson instructed the Mail: ‘After a evaluate of our ambassador programme earlier within the yr, David Walliams is now not an envoy of The Youngsters’s Belief.’
All of Walliams’ books had been printed by HarperCollins as a part of a long-term partnership with the writer.
Nevertheless, in December 2025, Walliams was dropped by HarperCollins following an inside investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour and harassment in direction of junior feminine workers members.
David Walliams arriving for Britain’s Received Expertise auditions in 2022
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The Telegraph reported that some junior workers had been refrained from Walliams, whereas others had been suggested to work in pairs when assembly him.
On the time, a spokesperson for HarperCollins mentioned it had determined to not launch any new titles by Walliams “after cautious consideration, and below the management of its new CEO”, although the writer didn’t give a motive for its determination.
A spokesperson for Walliams mentioned he had “by no means been knowledgeable of any allegations raised in opposition to him” by his writer.
“He was not occasion to any investigation or given any alternative to reply questions. David strongly denies that he has behaved inappropriately and is taking authorized recommendation,” the spokesperson added.
He was additionally set to look on the festive version of Would I Mislead You? on BBC, set to air on Boxing Day that yr.
The BBC determined to air the episode however confirmed it didn’t have any future initiatives with Walliams.
Simply months earlier than, Walliams had confronted controversy after showing to make two Nazi salutes on the identical programme.
In September 2026, HarperCollins went a step additional and severed all ties with Walliams, halting gross sales of his books solely.
