Girls being ‘left alone’ with male TV stars would sign NDAs and surrender phones, claims ex-BGT artist - The Independent
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Lou Teasdale, a makeup artist who worked on Britain’s Got Talent during David Walliams’s run on the show, has claimed it was “standard protocol” in the entertainment industry for girls to “sign NDAs” before being “left alone” with famous men.
Without naming any of the shows or men in question, Teasdale – who has also worked on shows such as The X Factor – said that young women would also have their phones taken away before meeting these men, and claimed that victims of predatory male behaviour were scared to come forward for “fear of litigation”.
TV star and children’s author Walliams, who served as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent between 2012 and 2022, was this week accused of preying on young women and girls as young as 15, in investigations published by The Guardian and ITV News. He has denied all allegations.
Writing on Instagram yesterday (11 November), Teasdale, who was reported to have been in a brief romantic relationship with Walliams in 2020, said: “I've worked in the entertainment industry for a lot of years, the TV shows in question and with multiple celebrity men.
“And I’ll tell you It is open and standard protocol for girls to sign NDAs and have their phones taken from them before they're left alone with a famous man.”
Teasdale specified that she was “not accusing any of those I worked with of wrongdoing”, but was addressing a “completely legal” culture that exists, which “treats celebrity men’s privacy as more important than a woman’s safety”.
“How can a man be expected to behave with any accountability when there is an agreement in place beforehand to remove the woman's voice and the device that would keep her safe?” she continued.
“We can all be encouraging women to come forward but please can someone make it clear. If you've signed an NDA and you've been raped, are you allowed to come forward? I would imagine there are a lot of victims scared to in fear of litigation.”
Walliams departed Britain’s Got Talent in 2022, having apologised for making “disrespectful comments” about contestants during breaks in filming, which had been leaked to the press.
On a podcast this week, comedian Nish Kumar claimed that people in the comedy industry knew David Walliams had been booked on TV shows with a policy that forbade young women from going into his dressing room.
Calling out “enablers” within the industry, Kumar said: “The protection rings that surround [people like Walliams] have not been dealt with. And the producers that continue to work with these people continue to work in our industries. Things will start changing when there is accountability for the enablers of these men.”
In the run-up to the publication of the investigations about Walliams, lawyers for the Little Britain star had sought an injunction in court preventing him from being named.
They cited a potential risk to his life, following two recent suicide attempts.
A judge ultimately dismissed the bid for an injunction and the investigations were made public on Tuesday (10 November).
In a letter addressed to the journalists who had worked on the investigation, Walliams wrote: “Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with. I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret.
“And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did. I am not a sexual predator. I have not broken the law, but I am devastated that some of the women I met 10 to 20 years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me.”
