For the decade he spent on the judging panel of Britain’s Got Talent — one of ITV‘s most successful Saturday night shows — David Walliams played a variation of the same joke.
In this joke, he was a gay man, desperately in love with head judge Simon Cowell — or ‘My Simon’ as he would call him.
It was a piece of high-camp theatrics which Walliams seemed to enjoy. Sometimes he would sneak up behind Cowell when they arrived at auditions and sneak a kiss on the cheek. Other times, he would try to lie on Cowell on the judge’s desk.
Cowell would laugh along, and viewers could be forgiven for thinking the two men were good friends off screen as well as on it.
However, with Walliams now suing BGT‘s production company FremantleMedia for leaking a transcript of the off-colour abuse which led to him leaving the show in 2022, the situation looks rather different.
Walliams is suing BGT’s production company FremantleMedia for leaking a transcript of the off-colour abuse which led to him leaving the show in 2022
And Cowell has, of course, now given Walliams’ job on the show to his real gay best friend, Bruno Tonioli.
Speaking to sources close to the mogul, it turns out that Cowell has been holding Walliams at arm’s length for some time.
‘Simon was obsessed with David when he was first hired, couldn’t get enough of him,’ says a senior source at the broadcaster. ‘They would see each other socially and seemed tight. But it went sour fairly rapidly and they weren’t on good terms by the end.’
This week, when news broke of Walliams’ legal action, Cowell was in Los Angeles preparing for the final of America’s Got Talent.
Associates let it be known that Cowell hadn’t heard the legal action was coming, and wasn’t kept informed of it by Fremantle.
Actually, they said, he hadn’t given Walliams a thought for a long time. Ouch.
So how — and more interestingly why — did this schism set in? Some blame the ‘My Simon’ act, saying that what started as a joke became something which appeared almost deliberately embarrassing to Cowell, particularly after he got engaged to partner Lauren Silverman in 2021.
Walliams hooted on a radio broadcast last year: ‘Simon getting married to a woman! Who would have thought it!’ One well-placed source said: ‘Simon found it funny sometimes but rather wearing at others. I guess it would be fair to say that the jokes didn’t always come off.’
He added: ‘David always seemed excitable around Simon, off camera it wasn’t that different. Sometimes Simon was flattered and amused but, sometimes, he thought: ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘One time we were filming auditions in Hammersmith and David got overexcited and threw a pen at Simon’s head, and hit his face.
Walliams was a judge on the talent show for more than a decade alongside Amanda Holden, Simon Cowell and Alisha Dixon
‘Simon was not amused as it could have injured him or delayed the show. It was so childish. David apologised backstage afterwards. It wasn’t what you’d expect of a grown man.’
Others say that Walliams made the fatal error of trying to hog the spotlight. Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon, whatever you may think of their presenting talents, always defer to Simon.
When Walliams won Best TV Judge at the National Television Awards in 2018, he gloated: ‘I don’t look upon this as a victory for me. I look upon this as a humiliation for Simon Cowell. All he does is judge. He can’t sing, he can’t dance, he doesn’t tell jokes. He just sits there saying “no” to everyone. Anybody can do that.’
Walliams won the award three years in a row, and the last time he won he crawled along the judges’ table to kiss Cowell on the lips.
A source close to the show tells me: ‘The way David reacted at the NTAs always seemed very telling, as I felt that he was deeply envious of Simon on some levels. Although David was hugely successful with his books, his fame and wealth were on a different scale to Simon, who has cracked America.’ For the record, Walliams is worth £17 million, to Cowell’s £400 million.
An insider adds that the two men were divided by their differing personalities, and notes that Cowell’s experience of fatherhood changed him a great deal.
Walliams was hired in 2012 and Cowell’s son Eric was born in 2014. The pregnancy took him by surprise, and Silverman was married to a friend of his at the time.
Defying the doubters, the couple have since settled into a long and happy relationship and Cowell is even talking about having another child with Lauren.
Walliams was hired as a judge in 2012. Speaking to sources, it turns out that Cowell has been holding Walliams at arm’s length for some time
By contrast, Walliams has been divorced since 2015 and shown no inclination to settle down again.
‘In the early years they used to hang out a bit, go to parties and dinners. Simon did change completely when Eric was born, his life and his priorities and his views changed — he wasn’t on the scene any more,’ says the source.
Ultimately, Cowell is very different to Walliams, having a small circle of good friends to whom he is very loyal. He was persuaded against his better judgment to have a huge 50th birthday party, organised by his then-friends Sir Philip and Lady Green and grumbled to me afterwards about not enjoying big formal parties.
For his 60th he had a small dinner at home in Malibu, having cancelled a dinner for friends at a Chelsea restaurant.
Walliams is a showbusiness extrovert — as proved by the amazing turnout at his 52nd birthday party earlier this month.
Actors Michael Caine, Rob Brydon, David Schwimmer and Steve Coogan were there, as well as Ant and Dec, Alesha and Amanda (but not Simon) from BGT.
As a boy who struggled to make friends at school, Walliams has a horror of loneliness. In February 2009, he admitted on Desert Island Discs to persistent suicidal thoughts. Declaring he would take a gun as his luxury on the fantasy desert island, he said he would shoot himself if he got too lonely.
‘I can’t stand being on my own,’ he told Kirsty Young. ‘I hate it. When I am with my own thoughts, I start to unravel and to think dark, self-destructive thoughts.’
As he revealed in his candid autobiography, he first tried to kill himself at scout camp when he was 12. There followed at least three other attempts and a stint in the Priory hospital, followed by medication and therapy. But he went on to achieve stardom, and BGT was probably the crowning moment of public recognition.
Walliams is a showbusiness extrovert — as proved by the amazing turnout at his 52nd birthday party earlier this month. Actors Michael Caine, Rob Brydon, David Schwimmer and Steve Coogan were there, as well as Ant and Dec, Alesha and Amanda (but not Simon) from BGT
Initially the hiring of Walliams –— on £250,000 a year for two years — was viewed as a triumph and Cowell couldn’t have been happier. The show was in crisis after a lacklustre run featuring Michael McIntyre and David Hasselhoff and Cowell wanted to refresh it.
Walliams’ brief was ‘to embrace the more eccentric side’ of the show. And, by the time he left last year, his pay had risen to £1.5 million a year. His cod-homosexual patter had been toned down, too, with a source saying that poking fun at homosexuality was outdated and at odds with the show’s family-friendly, supportive ethos.
But his ‘private remarks’, picked up on a hot mic, showed he had a dismissive attitude towards some of the contestants.
A transcript showed Walliams describing a pensioner who had auditioned as a ‘c***’ three times. He also said of a departing female contestant: ‘She’s like the slightly boring girl you meet in the pub that thinks you want to f*** them, but you don’t.’
When the remarks became public Piers Morgan, a great friend of Cowell’s, wrote on Twitter: ‘Tip of the iceberg. Walliams is one of the nastiest frauds on TV.’ Morgan has declined to elaborate.
Although Walliams publicly glories in his camp image, and has admitted to homosexual fumblings as a boy, he insists he is not gay. ‘Sometimes I think it would be simpler if I was [gay] because everyone thinks I am. I love women. I love being around women. I find them intoxicating. I’ve never had that feeling for a man.’
There was uneasy laughter at the first dance at his 2010 wedding to model Lara Stone, which was to the theme tune from Disney’s Beauty And The Beast.
He is troubled by thoughts of being physically repulsive. As Walliams told an interviewer: ‘The thing about beauty, is that it is very compelling, because you hope it rubs off on you in some way.’
Did he feel the same way about Simon Cowell’s fame and money?