Stars like David Walliams shouldn’t use their power to silence allegations like these

Suzanne MooreTue, November 10, 2026 at 12:46 PM UTC

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David Walliams, the best-selling children’s author, used an injunction to silence the media over accusations of sexual misconduct - Getty Images/Shane Anthony Sinclair

The World of David Walliams, an attraction at Alton Towers, permanently closed last week.

Now, the world of David Walliams appears to be closing in on him, however much he has tried to stop this from happening. And he has tried. Today, it has been revealed that the best-selling children’s author is the celebrity who asked the High Court to permanently prevent news organisations from publishing allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Some of them concern teenage girls. In one case, a woman claimed that Walliams sexually assaulted her after contacting her on social media when she was just 15. There’s something particularly grim about these allegations given that around the same time, in the early 2000s, celebrities were making jokes in public about Walliams having an interest in teenage girls.

At the British Comedy Awards in 2004, Jonathan Ross (said to have been reading a line written by someone else) joked: “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.”

The claims, which he denies, come after a separate investigation by The Telegraph last year which revealed he faced accusations that he had harassed junior female employees at HarperCollins.

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Walliams insists he’s never behaved inappropriately. But The Telegraph’s investigation revealed that following an inquiry by the publisher, some junior staff were kept away from the author, and one employee agreed to a settlement and received a payoff. Former staff even told The Telegraph that they were told to work in “pairs” when meeting him and were advised not to visit his home. HarperCollins went on to drop Walliams, announcing that it wouldn’t publish any new titles by him.

Before that, in 2022, he quit Britain’s Got Talent after it emerged that he had made derogatory and sexually explicit remarks about contestants. He said of one: “She thinks you want to f--- her, but you don’t.”

That was made public, and yet his success continued. A familiar story by now.

Despite the allegations of misconduct, there are no criminal charges against him. Nonetheless, he sought a High Court injunction to prevent the publishing of any details about the alleged misconduct that The Guardian and ITN have been investigating for four years.

The grounds for this are disturbing – his legal team say he is a suicide risk, telling the court he has a history of depression and past suicide attempts. Suicide, though, is not a weapon, and should never be used as a threat in this way.

When the press airs allegations after years of rigorous reporting, they are to be congratulated. They can’t be allowed to be muzzled by the courts. We are, after all, talking about the protection of women and girls. That is the issue at stake here.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”