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it’s always the ones you most expect
TW: This article contains comments and references to sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised!
It’s been a big, revelatory week for celebrity culture in the UK.
On Monday, comedian and actor Russell Brand was sentenced to over ten years in jail for rape and sexual assault offences, with additional allegations currently being investigated by police. One day later, a major article and documentary regarding comedian and former Britain’s Got Talent judge David Walliams was finally released to the public. This investigative piece, co-published by ITV and The Guardian, alleges that Walliams used his fame and position to prey on young women for sex, exhibiting a pattern of behaviour that appears to have been ongoing intermittently for the past thirty years. He denies the charges.
The news that both these cultural figures are (most likely) abhorrent sexual deviants will feel somewhat obvious, especially if you were there to witness the provocative, gaudy ‘comedy’ of the noughties that helped foster a distinct, alternative ‘boys’ culture within celebrity circles.
Both Brand and Walliams represented a certain niche of fame that attracted tabloid attention, played on the ‘cheekiness’ of social taboos, and frequently gave them the protection and platform to behave in unacceptable ways. ITV’s documentary on Walliams opens with a 2004 clip of Jonathon Ross making jokes about David taking home a drunk fifteen-year-old at a televised awards show, for example. This obvious flaunting and bending of the rules wasn’t uncommon at the time, and played up to the ‘characters’ that men like Walliams and Brand portrayed on TV: a bit ‘dangerous,’ slightly mean-spirited, and rooted in male privilege.
Walliams first found fame via Little Britain, a show that essentially made caricatures out of the poor, vulnerable, or disabled. He would dress up as some of these characters on stage and bring teenage boys up from the audience. One case (that was recorded and included in the new documentary) sees Walliams pull down the trousers of a sixteen-year-old who then attempts to cover himself. The sketch was deliberately controversial and provocative, even for the time, but serves as evidence to show the level of nastiness that ran through popular culture at the time. As a male comedian, you could do almost anything unquestioned both on and off stage.
Many of the women who’ve come forward with stories have described similar patterns of behaviour. They were first introduced to Walliams or Brand as fans, often young and naive, before a sexual relationship was steadily built on an unbalanced foundation that was inappropriate given their age differences and social standings. Both men were very successful and were able to operate in this way while any associated businesses turned a blind eye. Money talks, or in this case, doesn’t.
We already know what Brand’s fate is, with a ten-year sentence to serve and potentially more on the horizon. Walliams, meanwhile, attempted to silence these new allegations on the grounds that he would end his own life if they were made public. His attempt failed (obviously), and we’ve yet to see what the next steps will be, both legally and professionally.
If there is any light to this story, it’s that some of the abusive figures who were able to behave horrendously two decades ago are finally getting what they deserve, though we suspect it’s likely the tip of the iceberg. Remember the uproar when most women said they’d rather choose to be alone in the woods with a random bear than a man? It seems like each passing day that decision feels increasingly justified.
