Former Holby City actor Jeremy Edwards has said he felt "humiliated" over an interaction with David Walliams during a Comic Relief sketch, claiming he was "duped" and did not consent to having his genitals exposed in front of a live audience.
Edwards, 55, said the incident occurred during a Little Britain sketch at the Hammersmith Apollo in London in 2006, when he was a last-minute replacement alongside Walliams and comedian David Baddiel. In the sketch, Walliams performed as Des Kay, a predatory, gay former children's entertainer and TV presenter, who plays a game of "hide the sausage" before lunging at Edwards and pulling down his jeans and underwear, leaving him partially naked in front of an audience of 3,500 people.
Allegations Against Walliams
The revelation comes after The Guardian and ITV News reported on Tuesday that Walliams, 55, was named as part of an alleged sexual misconduct investigation. One woman described her alleged encounter with Walliams when she was 15 as "sexual assault", while multiple women accused him of "grooming" them when they were teenagers. Walliams denies any wrongdoing.
On Friday, the Metropolitan Police said it had received a number of non-recent "serious" sex offence allegations against him "in recent days". Walliams has not yet responded to Tuesday's reports, but in a letter understood to have been sent several months ago to journalists working on the investigations, he denied being a "sexual predator" and said he recognised he "behaved thoughtlessly" at times, while insisting he had not broken the law.
Edwards Speaks Out
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Edwards claimed he had been misled about what the sketch would involve and was only told his trousers would be pulled down. "It simply was abuse. I did not agree to it. You just can't do that to people. Having your trousers pulled down and you're stood there in your boxer shorts is one thing. Having your penis exposed is something very different," he said.
"I didn't know that was going to happen. I'm angry because why did they think that would be OK with me? If they had said to me, 'By the way they are going to expose you in front of everybody would you agree?' Well, the answer is no. What we are talking about here is consent and I didn't consent to it."
The sketch was later included as a highlight on the Comic Relief Does Little Britain Live DVD, released in 2007 and still available to purchase online. Edwards added: "It's all on video – bang to rights. If I had known I was going to have my genitals exposed in front of all those people then put on a DVD which has sold millions of copies and then for it for now to be on the internet for the rest of my life, I wouldn't have done it for a million years."
Walliams' Previous Response
Walliams has previously described the incident as a mistake. Speaking to The Sun in 2011, he said: "I played it with Holby City actor Jeremy Edwards and pulled down his trousers. His pants came down at the same time, which was a mistake. It's a very easy mistake to make. But I did expose him to thousands of people at London's Hammersmith Apollo. I did feel bad about it afterwards. But not that bad."
Edwards said the incident and footage had "haunted me for years" and claimed it was not an accident after seeing footage of Walliams performing a similar sketch with other people. He added that he was "duped and felt like a mug".
