Amid all the lurid allegations that David Walliams had for years groomed and abused young women, are we really expected to believe that his former bestie Jonathan Ross knew nothing about the rumours? Nor anything about the way Russell Brand treated the unfortunate women who crossed his path?
After the devastating claims that Walliams had been preying on teenage women and abusing his position of power as far back as 2003 – claims that the former Little Britain star vehemently denies – Ross declared: ‘I am as horrified by the revelations about David Walliams and the crimes of Russell Brand as the rest of the nation.
‘There was a time in my life when I was once on friendly terms with both men and during that period I was genuinely unaware of their conduct.’ He added: ‘My thoughts are with the many, many women who have bravely come forward.’
Genuinely unaware? Sorry, but I just can’t credit it.
I confess that ‘Wossy’ and I have history. I have ‘skin in the game’, as they say.
I had an encounter with him at a pre-Christmas event on Hampstead Heath near to where I lived back in 2021.
Jonathan Ross said he was 'horrified' by the revelations about David Walliams, who he met in the early 2000s
Ross with Russell Brand, who was jailed this week for more than ten years after being convicted of rape and sexual assault
Ross was with his wife Jane Goldman and their daughter Honey when he saw me approaching and snarled in my face with barely disguised disgust: ‘They don’t let dogs in here, Amanda.'
Perhaps he was being paternally protective of Honey, for I had been critical of her in the past, questioning whether she was wise to post pictures of herself as a size 18 in a G-string in an attempt to shame a ‘fat-phobic’ world.
Even so, it surely did not give Ross the right to call me a ‘dog’. What man speaks like that to a woman?
Whatever the case, it left a strong impression on me as to the kind of man he is.
And it seems to me that his statement yesterday on Russell Brand and David Walliams is all about trying to manage his own reputation.
The trouble is, he hasn’t pulled it off.
After all, none of us can forget it was Ross who in 2008 joined in the on his Radio 2 show when his then friend Russell Brand humiliated and left a crude phone message about having sex with Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of the then 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.
To fully appreciate how revolting this episode was, it’s worth repeating what Brand said: ‘Andrew Sachs, Andrew Sachs. I said something I didn’t have oughta, like I had sex with your granddaughter.
Ross and his then friend Brand left a crude phone message about having sex with Georgina Baillie on his Radio 2 show in 2008
Ms Baillie is the granddaughter of the late Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs
‘But it was consensual and she wasn’t menstrual, it was consensual lovely sex. It was full of respect, I sent her a text, I’ve asked her to marry me, Andrew Sachs.’
Oh, how he and Brand laughed. They’re not laughing now.
Unfortunately for Ross, he also appeared to refer to David Walliams’s alleged predatory behaviour with young girls at the 2004 Comedy Awards: ‘The comedy awards is 15 years old,’ he joked, ‘and like most 15-year-olds is probably going home with David Walliams.’
Why would you even make that joke before a roomful of TV celebrities unless they would understand exactly what you were alluding to? Does it not suggest that the rumours about Walliams were swirling all those years ago in the smug and monied media circles Ross moved in?
Ross addressed this question in his statement. He acknowledged it was tasteless, and added: ‘This joke was submitted to me by the Comedy Awards script-writing team and I believed that the punchline was a reference to the fact he had publicly dated younger women, exaggerated for comic effect.
‘Had I had any reason to suspect that it might be 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.’
Ross appeared to refer to Walliams' alleged predatory behaviour at the 2004 Comedy Awards as it turned 15. He joked, ‘and like most 15-year-olds is probably going home with David Walliams’
Ross with Walliams at a charity event in 2003, where the Little Britain star has his arm round 18-year-old Lilly Creightmore
Oh, please Wossy, pass the sanctimonious sickbag! You were one of the most successful presenters in the business at the time – not long after you signed a BBC contract that paid you around £6million a year.
Would the BBC really pay such eye-watering sums to the sort of person who would meekly read out and fail to question a tasteless joke they were handed by a script-writing team at an awards ceremony?
Was Ross not paid to think for himself? Or was he simply turning a blind eye to Brand’s and allegedly Walliams’s appalling behaviour and predilection for young girls?
Of course, he protests he knew nothing. But if that is the case, he must have been one of the least observant people in the media as he continued to fete both Brand and Walliams on his shows.
I am not suggesting for a moment that Jonathan Ross was involved in anything like Walliams’s alleged misdemeanours or Brand’s abuse of young women.
Ross has been happily married to his wife Jane Goldman, a celebrated screenwriter and the mother of their three children, since 1988.
I am just humbly asking how any of us can believe his claims that he knew so little about the behaviour of Brand and Walliams when he was so close to both of them for so many years.
He met Walliams in the early 2000s, and is pictured with him at a charity event in 2003. At the time Walliams had his arm round 18-year-old Lilly Creightmore.
Lilly had been contacted by Walliams after he spotted her at a live Little Britain filming event; he managed to find out her address, made contact and met her for dinner where, she claims, his ‘grooming’ of her began.
Ross, meanwhile, became friends with Brand in 2006 when Brand appeared on BBC One's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. Then came Sachsgate and the ensuing scandal which both of them said was a ‘bonding’ experience causing them to grow ‘very close’. So close that Ross attended Brand’s first wedding to Katy Perry in 2010 as well as his second to Laura Gallacher in 2017.
There’s a well-known saying, often attributed to the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’
Does Ross fall into that category of a good man saying or doing nothing? Was he an unwitting and innocent facilitator of the abuse of women by Brand and allegedly Walliams while he befriended them? They appeared on his TV shows and they believed they were masters of the universe.
Or did he choose to overlook the ugly truth? Only he knows.
But his protestations of innocence, his claims that he was ‘genuinely unaware’ about what was going on will not help him salvage a single shred of his already wafer-thin credibility.