The Second Serve // Just Walliams

Last Thursday, the Guardian ran a story about some leaked comments David Walliams made a few years back on the set of Britain’s Got Talent, including an incident where he called a pensioner a cunt three times.

In and of itself, it probably didn’t come as a huge shock to Popbitch readers as we’ve spent many years covering Walliams in his various guises – comedian, presenter, children’s author and all-purpose arsehole.

But that story had all the hallmarks of it being a prelude to something larger; the first crack in a dam. So here’s a few thwacks of the hammer from us to guide things on their way…

Old footage of a Little Britain Live routine resurfaced over the weekend in which Walliams (in character as “Des Kaye”) drags a series of teenage boys up onto the stage to play a game of ‘Hide The Sausage’ with them. This involves him wrestling each of them to the floor, pulling down their pants to bare their arses, then writhing around on top of them trying to kiss them.

The footage is from 2007 but the routine is actually one of Walliams’ oldest bits.

In his schooldays at Reigate Grammar he was famous for pushing smaller boys against a wall and dry humping them for laughs. The only difference is that the character was called “Cuthbert Hogsbottom” back then.

In Issue 1077 we asked:
“Which bestselling author has bit of a reputation at his publishers for working his way through the women on staff there? At least three colleagues have taken receipt of the exact same bouquet of flowers to thank them for their company; a rather obvious tell to the rest of the office as to who he’s been shagging.”

You can probably make an educated guess as to who that is now…

For many years Cilla Black was always the celebrity that airline cabin crew agreed was the most obnoxious. When she died, it was David Walliams who ascended to take the throne – but his behaviour was generally much weirder than Cilla’s.

On one transatlantic BA flight, David kept insisting that he and his then-wife Lara Stone be allowed to use the onboard loo together to “get changed into their pyjamas”. Cabin crew eventually relented, bracing themselves to have to listen to the two of them loudly renew their Mile High Club membership – but that isn’t what came to pass.

Far from shagging in the bogs, all David and Lara did was strip down to their underwear. Then they burst out of the toilet to start play-chasing each other around the first class cabin like a Benny Hill sketch.

There’s a very star-studded street in Brighton where a load of celebs live. Known locally as Millionaire’s Row, residents have included Adele, Paul McCartney, Zoe Ball, Fatboy Slim, Nick Berry and David Walliams – but there’s no telling who you might meet if you’re ever invited there.

One lucky 19 year old who had the pleasure of bumping into Walliams at the local Crazy Golf was invited (by Instagram DM) to pay a visit to his house one evening. She’d got the impression that it was just going to be a cosy night a deux, so you can imagine her surprise when she turned up to find two small children there too.

“Don’t mind them,” said Walliams, ushering her in. “I’m just babysitting.”

They were Elton John’s kids.

In recent years, David Walliams’ children’s books have been subject to much greater scrutiny from critics, who claim his stories are deeply problematic for young kids. In fairness to Walliams though, he does more than most to stop children from actually reading any of them.

When he was approached by a literacy charity a few years back to see if he would do something for the 100 or so children who completed their reading programme that year, Walliams offered to send the kids a book of his.

Which he did.

One book. For the hundred kids to share.

Throughout the early 90s Pet Shop Boys attracted a mad-keen superfan. This tall, rather camp chap was often at the front of the audience wherever they were playing, and can be seen falling into a reverie on camera on Top Of The Pops when they appeared to perform their single “Liberation”.

Tennant and Lowe noticed him at that performance and got chatting to him afterwards. Over the years, they became quite friendly with this fan, who would always remember to send them Valentine’s cards each February.

The name of that superfan? David Walliams

Last week, we started making quizzes out of the various Now That’s What I Call Music compilations. It’s not really worth explaining the theme in any great detail, but we did the 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s last week; the 6s to 10s are happening this week.

Each day, we’ll stick ten song fragments into a three-minute mix. All you have to do is identify the ten songs and the ten artists for each one. Simple.

Monday’s Theme: Now That’s What I Call Music – The 6s

[Play it here]

Bubble Simulator
[Play with it here]

“Trump, Musk and Kayne Are Twitter Poisoned”
[Read on NYT]

A collection of old, abandoned amusement parks
[Browse on Atlas Obscura]

A new NeverDull DJ set
[Listen on YouTube]