Intro for November 10, 2026

Dear Gossips,

Trigger warning for sexual assault

Russell Brand was sentenced yesterday to ten and a half years in prison after being found guilty last week of rape and sexual assault. Today David Walliams is headline news for allegations of sexual misconduct that include grooming.

A few weeks ago, his legal team had asked the court to block the publication of the accusations, warning that he might take his own life if The Guardian and ITN were to move ahead with their reporting, resulting in media coverage of an “anonymous celebrity” who was stopping people from finding out about the allegations against him. Outside of the UK there was all kinds of speculation over who that might have been. In UK media circles, however, and for those who are online enough to have connected the dots (easily), it was an open secret. David Walliams has been very famous in the UK for a very long time. And like so many predators before him, he had a reputation. The fact that he’s disappeared from public life also made it obvious. Plus his publisher dropped him.

This morning the court denied the request and both media outlets immediately went live with their reports. It’s clear that they’ve spent months, if not years, investigating David Walliams's conduct – the reports are detailed, with emails and photos to support the claims of at least two women who allege that he first made contact with them when they were as young as 15 years old. As noted in The Guardian piece, “more than 100 people” were contacted. It’s a long read, but if you are able to, the article thoroughly lays out the women’s experiences and also profiles the systems in place that protected David Walliams for so long across multiple industries. And here’s a companion article at The Guardian that can walk you through the “unprecedented” effort to stop the media from reporting on it… which, of course, speaks to how men like David Walliams, like so many before him, have spent considerable resources to try and bend the law in their favour. In this case it didn’t work. But it has worked for others. And what’s also worked for others is a hard pivot to the right, to the manosphere, to the anti-woke side of the culture that has been trying for years to tell us that society’s greatest evil is the cancel brigade and the attempt to censor and tear down “real men”. That’s what Russell Brand did and should David Walliams do the same, it would not be a surprise.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey