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Dspirited walliams have been dropped from their lucrative publishing contract with harperFollowing an internal investigation into alleged inappropriate behavior towards young female employees at the company. Former employees alleged Wire They were advised to work in pairs when meeting them and not to visit their homes. It is the most damaging so far in a series of controversies involving the comedian and author, who has strongly denied the new claims. He had previously managed to delicately balance his career as a provocative, female-oriented comedian with the moonlighting role of Britain’s Most Important Man. Children’s novelist. At last, that precarious alliance seems to be crumbling.
Born in London in 1971, Walliams grew up in the suburbs and attended Reigate Grammar School, Sir’s alma mater. keir starmerWhile studying drama at the University of Bristol, Walliams enrolled in the National Youth Theatre, where he teamed up with another young actor, matt lucasMore than a shared appreciation for Vic Reeves Big Night OutThey had a mutual interest in comedy that was based on strangeness, which led the pair to their first sketch show, Mash and PeasDirected by Edgar Wright, which aired on the Paramount Comedy Channel in 1996.
But this was his breakout hit, little britainWhich turned them into stars. Following a successful first run on Radio 4, the show was adapted for the BBC’s alternative comedy channel, BBC Three, in 2003.matt lucas And David Walliams A contemporary reviewer wrote, “There is going to be the funniest double act on television this autumn. And Walliams and Lucas, indeed, came to define early-noughties comedy. From gobby teen Vicky Pollard (“Yes, but no, but yes, but no, but…”) who got pregnant and traded her baby for a Westlife CD, to demanding wheelchair user Andy and his innocent carer Lou (“I want He One!” Andy would regularly demand), the little britain The characters became instantly iconic. In pubs and schools across the country, these catchphrases were played with great enthusiasm.
little britain In many ways, it epitomized the bitter television landscape of the nineties. Take Marjorie Dawes (played by Lucas), who runs a weight-loss group called “Fat Fighters” and encourages attendees to bite the dust. To some extent, this was indicative of fatphobic dieting culture, but it equally teased Marjorie’s delusions of being overweight. Similarly, Vicki Pollard both parodied tabloid fears about “chav” culture and made Vicki the butt of jokes. This lead to repeated criticism that the show was racist, sexist, classist and homophobic: comedy legend Victoria Wood applied the label. little britain “Very misogynistic”, while left-wing writer Owen Jones condemned its “caricatures”, particularly of Pollard, “an awkward working-class teenage single mother who is sexually promiscuous, unable to put a sentence together, and has a very bad attitude problem”.
In the years in which it captured the zeitgeist, little britain Has aged like cheese in an airy cupboard. Walliams and Lucas follow suit, come Fly With MeWhich has faced repeated criticism for its use of blackface and brownface.
By the time the series aired in 2010, Walliams had established himself as a successful writer. His first book, boy in dressWas published in 2008. executive Officer harper Whoever signed Walliams to the deal clearly saw something in the actor – who was completely new to him little britain The role of Desiree DeVere, a demonic cartoonish African-American cannibal – which was not immediately apparent to the audience.
But boy in dress was an instant hit and led to a flood of 22 novels (as well as seven short story collections and 10 picture books), making Walliams one of the most bankable writers in British publishing. While his co-conspirators, matt lucasFeeling like he was moving away from the spotlight, Walliams sought it out. In 2012 he joined the judging panel Britain’s Got Talent alongside Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon, a job he would do for a decade, giving him a primetime platform.
During this period, Walliams performed brilliantly. He made his name through exaggerated camp performances with Lucas (who is gay), leading to some indecent speculation about his sexuality (although Walliams acknowledged this several times: in 2011 Ofcom received complaints about a Channel 4 show in which Walliams declared that he would “like to suck your dick”, in reference to 17-year-old Harry Styles). Yet, at the same time, he was becoming tabloid fodder for high profile relationships with glamorous women. In 2009, 37-year-old Walliams was reported to be romancing 18-year-old model Lauren Budd. A year later, he married supermodel Lara Stone, 12 years younger than him. After separating in 2015, Walliams was linked to several women, including Ashley James, Ashley Roberts, and Keeley Hazell.
Somehow, Walliams’s reputation in the publishing world remained bulletproof. Throughout this period, Walliams was regularly performing an infamous live sketch called “Hide the Sausage”, in which male volunteers (including celebrities such as David Baddiel and Mark Ronson) were invited on stage and Walliams exposed their genitals to the audience. Reports suggest that men as young as 16 were also involved in this routine. “Today you can never escape it,” Lucas wrote in his 2017 autobiography. “Actually, he couldn’t always get away with it then.”
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Still, to outsiders it seemed as if he was going too far. This is probably because his books for children became a publishing sensation, and in some circles he was held up as the successor to Roald Dahl (a children’s author with a difficult personal life). ,[Dahl’s] “The books are perfect, and I don’t think my books are in the same league,” he told ITV at the height of his popularity. “But it’s a good comparison.” During the 2010s, he continued to consolidate his power in this market: his books have been adapted for TV, translated into more than 55 languages, and at one point reportedly constituted 44 percent of the market. harper‘Sale of children’s books. He seemed untouchable.
And then, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Walliams hosted an event for the Presidents Club in which several female employees were assaulted by guests. in the report financial Times Many powerful people were implicated and Walliams’s reputation was tarnished. In the years that followed, Walliams’s interactions – particularly with young women – were scrutinized more closely, ultimately leading to his exoneration. Britain’s Got Talent in 2022 after a recording of him making derogatory and sexually explicit comments about contestants was leaked. And even his literary empire has faced increasing mainstream hostility. New Statesman Given that it comes from the “Boaty McBoatface school of fiction”).
Now, “after careful consideration”, HarperCollins has severed ties with the author – a decision that was undoubtedly at odds with their bottom line. A spokesperson for Walliams responded, saying “David strongly denies that he has behaved inappropriately and is taking legal advice”.
But it seems to be the culmination of a growing dissonance between Walliams the children’s author and Walliams the prickly, controversial public figure. After making so many bad headlines in recent years, it’s a wonder their publishing deal lasted so long.