THE FAMOUS MAN who failed to get a High Court injunction against two media organisations to prevent them from reporting allegations against him can now be named as David Walliams.

Multiple women have accused David Walliams of sexually inappropriate behaviour and grooming including when they were teenagers, according to an investigation by the Guardian and ITV News.

Walliams, 55, brought legal action against Independent Television News (ITN) and Guardian News and Media (GNM), publisher of The Guardian, ahead of the two organisations reporting those allegations against him.

Lawyers for the media organisations previously told the High Court in London the allegations involved Walliams’ alleged “abuse of power and status” to contact young women and try to engage in “inappropriate and exploitative sexual activities”.

Walliams denied the claims and unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent these publications because of the risk he would take his own life, after two previous suicide attempts.

Downing Street has on Tuesday described the allegations against David Walliams as “deeply troubling”.

A joint investigation by the Guardian and ITV was released on Tuesday.

The allegations come after Walliams lost a bid for a UK High Court injunction preventing the publication of the allegations against him.

Walliams had not been named as the person seeking the injunction, with the application being known only as coming from a “famous man”.

Walliams’s legal team had sought the injunction on the basis that the broadcast of the allegations gave rise to a risk that he would take his own life, after two previous suicide attempts.

Walliams has been a well-known comedian and children’s author in the United Kingdom for over 20 years.

He first rose to fame as one-half of BBC sketch show Little Britain, alongside Matt Lucas, and was a frequent guest across various television shows in subsequent years.

Walliams had a high-profile role as a judge on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent between 2012 and 2022 but left the role that year after he apologised for making “disrespectful comments” about auditioning contestants during filming breaks.

An award-winning children’s author, Walliams’s published titles included The Boy In The Dress and Gangsta Granny, which was turned into a one-hour BBC special in 2013.

Walliams’s one-time book publisher HarperCollins previously stated that his books had sold more than 60 million copies globally.

Walliams statement

Walliams has denied abusing his power as a celebrity in relationships with women but said he realised he had “behaved thoughtlessly”.

In a personal letter written to Guardian and ITV News journalists denying the allegations and detailing their impact on his mental health’, the comedian 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.

Dropped by Harper Collins

Last December, Walliams was dropped by HarperCollins following an investigation into allegations that he had “harassed” young women. The publisher did not provide further details about the allegations but said that it “takes employee wellbeing extremely seriously”.

The news of Walliams being dropped by HarperCollins was originally reported by The Telegraph, which said at the time that some staff members had been instructed to work in pairs when meeting him and to avoid visiting his home.

One woman who raised concerns reportedly received a five-figure settlement and subsequently left the company.

Prior to the legal wrangling surrounding these latest allegations, Walliams has previously been involved in legal actions related to his behaviour.

In 2023, Britain’s Got Talent producer Fremantle apologised and reached an “amicable resolution” with Walliams after the remarks he made while on the show were leaked.

Walliams had sued the company for misuse of private information and for breaching UK GDPR rules.

With reporting by PA