Comedian Lucy Beaumont said she risked her TV career by speaking out about David Walliams because the industry did not tolerate troublemakers.
In an interview with Sky News (watch below), the Tyrant star and Hullraisers The writer revealed she was one of the “whistleblowers” against Walliams, who was accused of using his fame and power to prey on teenage girls. Walliams, known for Little Brittany And Doctor Whostrongly denies any wrongdoing.
Beaumont said The Cathy Newman Show that a young person working on a television show approached her to express concerns that Walliams had allegedly accommodated teenagers in her dressing room. Beaumont said he contacted one of the girls.
“She was really bad,” Beaumont said. “I was really afraid that she was going to kill herself because of this. She had put some information online and there was evidence that she was in a dressing room. I offered to pay legal fees to try to get some protection – and I’m not necessarily saying that what she was saying was true – but I wanted to help her because it was a world that she was really out of reach in.”
Beaumont continued: “I believe she had signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) to say – and this is the problem with some of these NDAs – that the NDA wasn’t just about her not being able to talk to the media. It was about her not being able to – I’m almost crying as I tell you this – talking to her family or her friends or a therapist.”
She added: “There’s no real duty of care. There’s no social services that you deal with, and that’s partly because the sector is so well run.”
Regarding her decision to speak out, Beaumont said she didn’t think she would work in television again because people “lose their jobs” for challenging high-profile figures and are described as “troublemakers”. She added that people are “very replaceable” in the company and that there are “lots of other people who can do your job.” Beaumont joked that she would become a Pilates instructor.
ITV News and The Guardian released its investigation into Walliams on Tuesday, detailing how he allegedly used his position on shows like Little Brittany And Britain’s Got Talent meet teenagers and have sexual contact with them. One of the teenage girls was believed to be 15 at the time of her interaction with Walliams. Beaumont said she spoke to The Guardian as part of its reporting.
“I’m not a sexual predator… I haven’t broken the law,” Walliams told ITV News. “I am devastated that some of the women I met ten to twenty years ago are now expressing their pain or anger towards me. »
He continued: “Looking back, I realize that at times I behaved inconsiderately towards other people with whom I had casual sex…I realize that I didn’t always properly consider people’s feelings. That’s something I regret. And while an imbalance of power is inevitable when a party is famous, abusing that power is a whole different thing and it’s something I’ve never done.”
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