The reports centre on a woman given the pseudonym Alex, who says Walliams contacted her by phone in January 2004, when she was 15 and he was 32, telling her: 'Hi, it's David Walliams. You know, off the telly!'

According to the Guardian, she says they were having sex by the time she was 17. Walliams denies the allegations, stating in a letter to journalists: 'I am not a sexual predator.

I have not broken the law.'

The surprise twist is that Walliams tried to stop the story from ever running. According to the BBC, his lawyers took a case to the High Court earlier this year to block publication, arguing that if the allegations were made public Walliams would likely kill himself.

The court refused the request, clearing the way for the women's accounts to be revealed.

The Guardian reports the dismissed case means the allegations can now be published in full, a reversal for one of Britain's most famous comedians and an OBE recipient who built a decade-long run as a much-loved Britain's Got Talent judge.

The consequences have already cascaded.

Grazia Daily reports Walliams has been dropped by publisher HarperCollins and his literary agents Independent Talent Group, suspended as a member of the Labour Party, and that the BBC is removing Little Britain from its platforms 'whilst this review is underway'.

His attraction at Alton Towers has permanently closed. The BBC adds that HarperCollins announced in September it would no longer publish his back catalogue, reportedly after staff were told to only meet him in pairs, which his spokesperson denies he was ever informed of.

The story lands on material fans know intimately. Little Britain, created with Matt Lucas for BBC Radio 4 in 2000 before moving to television between 2003 and 2006, drew 10 million viewers for its third season and won three Baftas and two International Emmys, according to the BBC and Grazia.

The show was already removed from BBC iPlayer, Netflix and BritBox in 2020 over blackface and stereotyping, then restored to iPlayer in 2022 with scenes cut after the duo re-edited it to 'better reflect the changes in the cultural landscape'.

Revisiting the sketch show now carries a very different weight.

The Guardian details allegations reaching back two decades, including that Walliams pursued a junior female employee at HarperCollins and harassed women at Britain's Got Talent and his publisher.

Walliams acknowledged 'at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with' but insists a power imbalance 'is inevitable when one party is famous' and that 'abusing that power is something else entirely'.

His partnership with Matt Lucas — the pair reunited in 2019 and now run a Making a Scene podcast with Netflix projects in development — now faces fresh scrutiny.