Jonathan Ross says he was 'genuinely unaware' as Walliams scandal widens

Jonathan Ross says he is "as horrified by the revelations about David Walliams and the crimes of Russell Brand as the rest of the nation". He also says he was "genuinely unaware of their conduct". That second claim is doing a lot of work, given that Ross joked on live television in 2004 about a 15-year-old "going home" with Walliams at the British Comedy Awards.

Walliams, 55, one of Britain's best-known television personalities and top-selling children's authors, has been accused by several women of using his power and celebrity status to prey on young women and teenagers for sex. The Guardian and ITV News published the allegations after a three-year joint investigation. A court rejected Walliams's legal attempt to block publication. He denies any wrongdoing.

What did Ross actually say?

The 2004 joke, delivered at the British Comedy Awards, ran: "The comedy awards is 15 years old – 15 years old! And like most 15-year-olds, it's drunk, it's unpredictable and it's probably going home with David Walliams."

In a statement, Ross said: "I recognise how deeply shocking it is to revisit footage of a joke delivered by me at the Comedy Awards in 2004, in which I make light of the notion of Walliams going home with a 15-year-old."

He said the joke came from the Comedy Awards script-writing team, and that he believed the punchline referred to Walliams publicly dating younger women, exaggerated for comic effect. He called it "a tasteless joke that I would not dream of making today about anyone, but that is beside the point".

Ross added: "Had I had any reason to suspect that it might have been referring to actual events, I would not only have refused to use it, but I would not have felt comfortable continuing a personal or professional relationship with him."

Who is cutting ties?

The fallout has been swift and broadly distributed:

• Independent Talent Group, Walliams's literary agency, has dropped him, saying it was "deeply disturbed" by the allegations.
• Fremantle UK, the production company behind Britain's Got Talent, where Walliams judged from 2012 to 2022, said it is "disturbed and concerned".
• Sky will no longer hold the licence for Fing!, a film written by and starring Walliams, previously expected next year.
• The BBC is removing some programmes, including Little Britain, while it reviews "all material featuring and written by David Walliams on our platforms".
• The Labour Party has suspended Walliams's membership.

What have politicians said?

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy called the claims the "latest in a long line of reported abuses of power" and promised to meet senior media and entertainment industry figures to "draw a line in the sand".

"A decade and a half on from the revelations about Jimmy Savile, and 10 years on from the #MeToo movement, we must finally take meaningful steps to end abuse and harassment in sectors where the power imbalances are huge and careers are built on contacts and reputation," she said.

Downing Street described the allegations as "deeply troubling".

Jess Phillips, the Labour MP and former safeguarding minister, told Times Radio the court's intervention mattered: "It would have been a terrible precedent, and every powerful man in the public eye and outside of the public eye would have used this injunction tactic in the future."

What is Walliams's defence?

Walliams remains in a psychiatric hospital. In a personal letter to Guardian and ITV News journalists, he wrote: "Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with. And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something I never did."

He added: "I am not a sexual predator. I have not broken the law, but I am devastated that some of the women I met 10-20 years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me."

His lawyers said he also denies allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.

With the BBC review still under way and the culture secretary summoning industry leaders, the institutions that built Walliams's career now face questions the courts have already answered about publication. The silence, this time, didn't hold.