Exposing teenagers' genitals and simulating sex during 'Hide the Sausage'
Walliams performed a 'Hide the Sausage' sketch numerous times during the
Little Britain Live tour in 2006 and subsequent worldwide tours including
Little Britain in Australia in 2007 and at charity events.
[92][93] Walliams portrayed a fictional, gay, former children's entertainer and sex offender named Des Kaye who invites volunteers from the audience or celebrity guests to play the game.
[94] Recordings of the sketch include footage where Walliams attempts to kiss participants, manhandles them, pulls their trousers and underwear down, and simulates anal sex.
[95] Volunteers are seen "grappling to keep their genitals covered."
[95] The sketch was criticised by gay rights campaigners and attracted criticism and concern from members of the public.
[95][94]
Teenagers during Little Britain Down Under
Footage from a 2007
BBC documentary titled
Little Britain Down Under shows Walliams inviting male teenagers, said to be aged sixteen to eighteen, to play 'Hide the Sausage' on stage.
[95] Walliams asks the volunteers to confirm their ages and says "Bingo" when one claims they are sixteen years old before adding, "You're a big boy for 16 aren't you - that's what I'll tell the judge."
[95]
Walliams is seen pulling down the trousers and underwear of young men before he appears to kiss their buttocks and simulate anal sex.
[95] The volunteers attempt to keep their clothes on.
[95]
During the documentary, Walliams reads a letter he claims was written by a victim of sexual abuse who criticises the Des Kaye character.
[96] Elsewhere in the documentary, Walliams says, "I love cruelty, it's my favourite thing in the world."
[96][92]
Exposing Jeremy Edwards' genitals and Mark Ronson's buttocks
In 2006, Walliams performed 'Hide the Sausage' during the
Little Britain Comic Relief Gala at the
Hammersmith Apollo.
[94][97][98] Participants included comedian
David Baddiel and English actor
Jeremy Edwards whose genitals were exposed to more than 3,000 people in the live audience.
[99][94] Walliams also 'dry humped' Edwards and laid on top of him.
[94] Walliams said on stage, "That was not meant to happen. You were not supposed to see gonad. Arse crack, yes. Gonad, no.'
[100] An image of the incident, that includes Edwards' penis, is available to purchase on
Getty Images[101]
Chortle reported that. "tellingly, Edwards – who seemed genuinely embarrassed by the incident – did not appear at the final curtain call."
[102]
On 2 November 2009, Walliams performed the sketch with
Mark Ronson at London's
O2 Academy Brixton in front of 3,000 people at a charity event for Concert for CARE.
[103] Footage from the event shows Ronson trying to stop Walliams from pulling his trousers and underwear down.
[104][105] Ronson's buttocks were exposed.
[106] After the event, Walliams was reported to have said, "When I put my mind to it, I have the strength of ten men so there's no stopping me. Mark is a cool, calm character. To put him in that position was out of his comfort zone."
[107] Walliams claimed that he offered to buy Ronson a new suit.
[107]
Criticism and violent reaction from theatre goers
Matt Lucas discussed the 'Hide the Sausage' sketch in his 2017 autobiography titled
Little Me and claimed that some audience members reacted with violence.
[108] Lucas wrote that "during a game of 'Hide the Sausage', he would almost always wrestle the trousers off some poor lad" adding that, "You could never get away with that today. In fact he didn't always get away with it then. Sometimes David would get a clout for his troubles and I'd see him in the wings afterwards, nursing a sore ear."
[108]
Critics of the sketch included human rights campaigner
Peter Tatchell who said it, "crosses a red line into the sexual humiliation of young men.
[94] Tatchell added:
Williams portrayal of a predatory paedophile is not funny. It's sickening and unacceptable. That sketch should not be repeated anywhere. It should be withdrawn from public viewing and filed in a film archive so that future historians have evidence of what passed for 'comedy' only 13 years ago. Some viewers will have interpreted Walliams as playing the trope of gay men as predators and paedophiles. Even though Walliams supports the LGBT+ community, his depiction plays into the hands of those who wrongly equate homosexuality with the exploitation of young people.
[94]
Sexual comments about Harry Styles
In 2011
Ofcom and
Channel 4 received complaints regarding comments made by Walliams on
Chris Moyles' Quiz Night.[109] In regards to
Harry Styles, Walliams said, "I'd like to suck his cock."
[110] Styles was 17 years old at the time. Then director of
Mediawatch UK, Vivienne Pattison, criticised Channel 4's decision to broadcast the remark adding that "jokes like this set up a context of behaviour that somehow normalises and justifies it."
[111]
Presidents Club Charitable Trust
In January 2018, Walliams attended a
Presidents Club Charitable Trust charity auction as a host, as well as offering the opportunity to name a character in a future book as an auction prize.
[115] The 2018 event was his third time hosting, with Walliams additionally offering that he would be "personally presenting the book to your family over afternoon tea".
[116] This event was later subject to significant controversy, after undercover reporters reported many of the hostesses were subject to groping and sexual harassment from the all-male attendees.
[117] Walliams said he attended the event in a "strictly professional capacity" as host,
[118] and "left immediately" after his set ended, stating that he was "absolutely appalled" by the reports.
[119] The controversy caused some bookshops to remove his books from sale, with the owner of Chicken and Frog noting "even if he was unaware, when the highly inappropriate suggested names were mentioned for his auction lot, or the plastic surgery to 'add spice to your wife', he should have walked away. He did not".
[115]
Britain's Got Talent remarks
In November 2022, it emerged that Walliams had made sexually explicit and derogatory remarks towards some of the contestants on Britain's Got Talent, during a recording at the
London Palladium in January 2020.
[124] He was recorded as saying of one of them, "She thinks you want to fuck her, but you don't... I know, she's just like: 'Oh, fuck off!' I was saying, she thinks you want to fuck her, but you don't. It's the last thing on your mind, but she's like: 'Yep, I bet you do!' 'No I don't!' I had a bit of a boner, but now it's going, it's now shrivelled up inside my body."
[125][126] In a statement later, he said: "I would like to apologise to the people I made disrespectful comments about during breaks in filming for Britain's Got Talent in 2020. These were private conversations and – like most conversations with friends – were never intended to be shared. Nevertheless, I am sorry."
[127]
