TELLY star David Walliams has suffered from suicidal thoughts since being booted from Britain’s Got Talent, court documents have revealed.
The explosive claim is contained in a High Court action against the creators of the hit ITV show.
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David Walliams has suffered from suicidal thoughts since being booted from Britain’s Got Talent, court documents reveal Credit: BBC/Wall to Wall Media Ltd/Stephen Perry
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ITV show bosses also spied on him, he claims in a £10m High Court settlement Credit: Rex
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Ax comic record says creators Fremantle Media ‘recorded, transcribed and preserved’ private conversations for ten yearsCredit: Rex
Walliams, 52, sacked after jokes about contestants were leaked, also claimed Britain’s Got Talent bosses spied on him in a £10m High Court showdown.
His order says Fremantle Media creators “recorded, transcribed and stored” private conversations for ten years.
Walliams is seeking up to £10m after being sacked last year following the leak of crude comments in which he mocked two contestants.
In his devastating opening salvo, he accuses Fremantle of unlawfully breaching data protection on an industrial scale.
He claims they collected private and sensitive details of conversations during his time on the family favorite series.
And he claims fellow judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon were monitored in the same way by production staff.
Walliams, who says he suffered from suicidal thoughts after being axed from public life, is seeking £1m he was due to receive from the prime-time ITV show, plus £1.7m in lost earnings from last year.
It wants a further £3.4m to cover future losses over at least the next two years, bringing the total to £6.1m.
In addition, he is seeking further unspecified damages for psychiatric injury, distress and distress and loss of control over his personal information and legal costs – which sources say could total as much as £10m.
The warrant states that after he was turned down to read at the Commonwealth Writing Competition with Queen Camilla at Buckingham Palace, he was withdrawn.
His earnings have fallen from £3.7m in 2022 to just £101,800 in the first five months of this year, the newspaper revealed.
He said he only received one new work book at the time, which had “disastrous results for his reputation and career.”
Walliams says he now battles “active suicidal thoughts” and has “lost the ability to be funny” because of the fear that anything he says or does will be used against him.
The lawsuit will shock the showbiz world and promises to shut down one of the nation’s favorite shows.
In a 21-page legal document, his lawyers say: “The plaintiff (Walliams) now understands that, unknown to him at the time, his microphone was on and recording throughout the day of filming, including breaks, throughout his tenure as a judge on the show. “
He says it even happened when he went to the bathroom.
His claim said Fremantle “produced and retained audio transcripts of everything he said during that time, including private information that was not relevant to the production of the show”.
A copy of the transcripts is also claimed to be available to Cowell’s co-production company Syco on request.
It is about 1700 hours of audio recordings over ten years and 145 episodes.
In addition, they preserved 41,526 hours of visual records from 191 days of filming.
But Walliams complains that some of the footage was private – including candid conversations with Alesha about his marriage, divorce, spending, sex life, relationships and his physical and mental health.
They also covered witty political views, the reasons behind his atheism and family feuds, his struggle with food addiction, weight issues, his opinions on other celebrities and even the impact of his father’s death.
His lawyers say: “He was extremely upset to learn that private information, including many highly sensitive personal items, had been recorded without his consent or knowledge, transcribed, shared internally among employees of the defendant (Fremantle) and retained indefinitely.
“Furthermore, the defendant’s violations affected the plaintiff’s ability to perform.
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Walliams claims fellow judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon were monitored in the same way by production staffCredit: Getty
“He feels vulnerable when he enters the studio because he is afraid that what he says and does in that environment could be recorded and leaked without his consent.
“Due to the constant worry that any rash comments might be used against him, he lost the ability to be spontaneous or edgy – in short, to be funny.
“His inability to perform in this, his signature way, caused him additional acute distress, as he lost an important part of his personal and professional identity.”
Walliams says he had no idea of the extent of the surveillance until his “disrespectful” remarks about the two candidates were leaked to The Guardian, he claims, and published on November 10 last year.
The newspaper said it had obtained and reviewed “transcripts of referees’ comments over three days” at the London Palladium in January 2020.
Walliams called one man a “c***” three times and said of the woman: “She thinks you want to fuck her but you don’t.”
He then apologized and insisted the comments were taken from “private conversations” that were not meant to be shared.
But his offer to remain on the judging panel for this year’s show was withdrawn on December 14, and he was later replaced by former Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli.
Walliams says the fallout has destroyed his “reputation and career” as a comedian, TV personality and children’s writer.
A number of TV appearances and programs have been axed, including the Jonathan Ross Show, a podcast with fellow Little Britain star Matt Lucas and West End musicals.
The lawsuit details that Walliams has since suffered “recurrences of severe depression, including suicidal thoughts.”
In the report, consultant psychiatrist Dr Mark Collins, who treated him for many years, said his depression was “perhaps the worst since I first met him”.
He said the leaking of the transcripts “had a profound, difficult and, at times, very worrying effect on his mental health”.
The star has “severe sleep problems” and is “plagued by uncontrollable negative thoughts,” including “active suicidal thoughts.”
Walliams, who sued under his real name David Edward Williams, paid legal costs of £10,569.
Under court rules, this means he is seeking unlimited damages of more than £200,000 for a breach of his data protection rights.
His lawyers state: “The plaintiff is an experienced television professional.
“He was clear about when during the day of filming audio and video was being recorded for potential inclusion in the show and when it wasn’t.
“Since he assumed he was not being recorded during other times, the prosecutor would talk and joke in a careless way with the other judges.
“All four judges would regularly make crude and/or sexual jokes: that was the culture among the judges on the show.
“They did it to amuse themselves during long days of filming, with no thought that the remarks would ever be published — not least because the very nature of the remarks made them patently unfit for broadcast.
“Rather, they were private conversations between grown-up friends.”
He and Alesha, who sat next to each other in the judging panel, became “close personal friends” and “talked and joked” during filming breaks.
Their conversations were “serious as well as light-hearted” and covered a wide range of sensitive issues related to his private life.
His lawyers continued: “The private information was personal information belonging to the claimant, in respect of which he had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
“He was not aware that he was being continuously recorded, and therefore made remarks that constituted private information in the belief that it would remain private.
“It is apparent from the sensitive nature of some of the conversations the plaintiff had with other judges, particularly Ms. Dixon, that he intended them to be private and not shared beyond the immediate recipient.”
They claim: “Transcripts, in important respects, are inherently more privacy-threatening than recordings. Large volumes of transcripts can be searched much faster than recordings for specific words or phrases.
“Therefore, it is far easier to extract and reuse personal information from a transcript than from a recording (including for unauthorized purposes).”
Walliams’ agent wrote to BGT bosses on November 28 accepting the £1m offer and stating: “David would be happy to accept and looks forward to working with you on the next series.”
But it was withdrawn a little more than two weeks later.
Walliams, who was a judge on the show between 2012 and 2022, is demanding Fremantle destroy all recordings and transcripts.
Last night Walliams’ lawyers declined to comment.
Fremantle said: “We have had a long and productive relationship with David and are therefore surprised and saddened by this legal action.
“For our part, we remain available and open to dialogue in order to resolve this problem amicably.
“However, in the meantime we will investigate the various allegations and are prepared to defend ourselves vigorously if necessary.”
The Sun approached Syco for an official comment on Sunday, but a source there insisted the transcripts were never requested.
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Walliams is seeking up to £10 million in damages after being kicked out of the series last yearCredit: Getty
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The TV star was a judge on the show between 2012 and 2022. Credit: PA
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