David Walliams has filed suit against “Britain’s Got Talent” producer Fremantle after he was accused last November for allegedly making sexually explicit comments about a contestant.
The data protection suit was filed last week.
Walliams parted ways with the show, which airs in the U.K. on ITV, last November after transcripts were leaked to The Guardian newspaper in which he reportedly made a number of derogatory comments about contestants.
In the leaked transcripts, which came from three auditions filmed in London in 2020, Walliams was reportedly recorded calling one contestant, a senior citizen, a “cunt” and said of another contestant, who is female: “She thinks you want to fuck her, but you don’t,” adding she had given him a “boner” before it “shrivelled up inside my body.” The Guardian claimed to have reviewed the transcripts.
The newspaper said Walliams had made the comments in the presence of fellow judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon. There is no suggestion the other judges heard or responded to Walliams’ comments. Cowell’s spokesperson confirmed to Variety last year he had not heard the comments.
At the time, ITV told Variety in a statement, ITV: “We do not condone the language outlined in these allegations, and we have spoken to the producers of ‘Britain’s Got Talent.’ Duty of care towards all participants on any of our programmes is always of paramount importance and we have protocols and guidelines in place for all our production partners.”
Walliams, who was a judge on the show for ten years, was replaced three months after the controversy by “Dancing With the Stars” judge Bruno Tonioli. In the U.K. Toniolo was also a judge on “Strictly Come Dancing.”
Fremantle declined to comment on the lawsuit.