David Walliams

I didn’t talk about the legality of it. I said that it’s not as unproblematic as that poster suggests.

Actually- and I’m not just saying this - I always liked Matt. Somehow he didn’t give off the nasty vibes I got from DW. I know that sounds suspicious now!

I did enjoy the Vicki Pollard on trial in Thailand sketch with Dawn French as her mother. I probably shouldn’t have, but I did!

I think you know very well. But if I believe that one of my children has committed an offence and I pay off a witness or a victim so that they do not press charges then I am guilty. I suppose I could just pay them off believing that nothing had happened but it's probably worth a bit of reflection.

I didn’t talk about the legality of it. I said that it’s not as unproblematic as that poster suggests.

To me, having read all the Guardian content, it sounds like he has a history of grooming (how many?) 15 and 16 year old girls. I don't know if that's illegal but it's disgusting and given his status as a children's author, in my mind even more so. He is professionally destroyed. Maybe that's what's made him suicidal, maybe there's more to come out. Time will tell.

I wouldn’t be too shocked if he does try to kill himself.
It’s the abuse of power that tends to drive a lot of this and so much of it goes on. So depressing isn’t it.

He's worth £120 million - he will style this out in the shadows and retire to somewhere where he can be rich and anonymous to most and pap shots will appear from time to time reminding us that he is still alive.

I suppose even 99% isn't "all", but it does seem to be a huge majority of them. I remember coming across my dad's stash of porn magazines (boxes of them) when I was at primary school.

Oh, I had no idea you were talking about the Queen, I thought you were talking about Walliams. The Queen might indeed have been guilty of assisting an offender, or more likely perverting the course justice if she had paid off Giuffre on the understanding that she would refuse to cooperate with the police. But my understanding is that there was no police investigation, and no suggestion (at the time) of criminal activity. The payment was ‘hush money’ to prevent her from going to the press.

Giuffre was likely trafficked, but the law in 2001 on trafficked women was extremely weak so it’s unclear that AW committed any offence. The law was strengthened with the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 but unfortunately that was too late to catch AW.

We never have this type of story about a female celebrity, do we? I actually can’t think of a single occasion.

Lily Allen got quite the pasting in the press for using prostituted women.

I always liked them both, I think they were great together.

And for the record, while I was never a Russell Brand super-fan, I thought he was attractive in his younger days and not remotely creepy.

When I was a child, I loved 'Jim'll Fix It' and Rolf Harris's cartoon time. I didn't find either of them creepy, I liked Rolf until his crimes were revealed; post the Fix It era, Savile was just another rather boring celebrity.

I do not endorse or minimise what any of them have done, or allegedly done in the case of DW, but I am tired of reading comments that imply everyone 'always found so-and-so creepy' when these celebrities were attracting viewing figures in the millions in their heyday.

I might see something retrospectively and think 'knowing what I know now, that seems creepy' but, for some reason, this amazing ability to foretell the future that enables so many people to 'always have known' about disgraced celebrities is completely lacking in me.

It's OK to change your mind about someone when new information comes to light.

It's OK to like someone or find them inoffensive, and then stop liking them or start finding them offensive.

Nope. It’s getting to the point where I struggle to find any male comedians funny…

Not grooming, but Katy Perry has been accused of sexual assault by actress Ruby Rose and she also groped Anna Kendrick.

So one female celebrity paid another consenting (I would hope) adult. Not quite the same as just the male celebrity headlines of this week alone!

Yikes. Maybe her and Brand weren’t too badly suited.

The Billy countdown was horrible, then she married a 40yo man at 16, serious fucked up, just like page 3 girls. But we were all conditioned to accept it, just like accepting girls were the problem, girls targeted by grooming gangs were slags, girls taken advantage of by older men were slags. I remember being hit on at a house party by a 38yo man when I was 16, grown women were calling me a slag because he was hitting on me and not them.

Yep. Sadly, It makes you realise that a society that exists like in the Handmaid’s Tale isn't actually that far fetched 🙁

Just saw his statement by Walliams on the news, talk about weak, 'i have not broken the law' looks like another one for the scrubbs

Well I'm not seeing that about RB - plenty of commentary acknowledges his fame and appeal to many. Of course most individuals who are going to make a statement will do so along the lines of 'never liked him' but naturally, it's clear to most that there was appeal or he wouldn't have become famous.

I genuinely didn't like any of that kind of 'humour' and I didn't like their personas.

In the case of RB, there may not have been specific evidence about his sexual assaults but in plain sight he was objectionable, insulting, disparaging, and societally, this was tolerated. That's the question for us all - how did we watch this and still tolerate and support his fame?

One of the reasons, of course, is the culture shift. We certainly, as women, in no kind of nirvana now, but I can absolutely recall how acceptable it was to casually demean and make comments about women e.g. in the workplace, and it be completely ok - including being seen as acceptable to women themselves. Thankfully, societally, we have evolved and know how wrong this behaviour is, even if unfortunately, we still have many many men still happy to perpetrate it.

Some might feel the female British filmmaker Sam Taylor Johnson (who was then either 41 or 42) as a bit creepy. Directing her first film Sam was making her feature-film directorial debut and cast 18-year old Aaron as John Lennon then began a relationship with him. Still together 18 years later.

Caroline Flack was 32 and Harry Styles was 17 when they were dating.

Cheryl Cole first met Liam Payne when he was 14. Ok, they didn't get together for something like 7 years but if you watch the audition video and the way she reacts and responds to him is NOT about his talent. It really isn't.

Well said.

I'm getting thoroughly fed up with all the smug little victory laps from people posting things like, "I KNEW he was a wrong 'un before everyone else did!"

Well, congratulations Mystic Meg. Shall we get you a crystal ball and a slot on the National Lottery?

Apparently, we're now supposed to believe that some people possess an extraordinary sixth sense that the rest of us mere plebs somehow lack.

I'll hold my hands up: I used to like RB. I found him attractive. Obviously, I now find him utterly repulsive, but I'm not going to start flogging myself because I didn't experience some sort of psychic disturbance in his presence.

The reality is that manipulative men can be very good at fooling people.

Plenty of women find themselves in relationships with men who turn out to be nothing like the person they initially presented themselves as. It doesn't make those women stupid, complicit or somehow responsible for not spotting it sooner.

And frankly, I'm not convinced that being able to retrospectively identify a wrong 'un on social media qualifies anyone for a degree in psychological profiling.

Not every woman needs to be a human lie detector or a sort of narc-detecting truffle pig to avoid being deceived by a man.

Some men are just very good at pretending to be decent human beings. That's on them, not the women they manage to fool.

How close would make it acceptable? I think you're missing the point!

Same old hypocritical story in the media. ITV were quite happy to employ him and when they had enough of him, sack him, and then produce a documentary about how awful he was. Just like Channel 4 with Russell Brand.

ITV and Channel 4 essentially helped enable the behaviour, they didn't care because it was making them money, and once that stopped they then decided to make money by publishing allegations against their former stars.

It's about time this firms were held accountable too.

Does that really matter? He was a grown man, who positioned himself as a trusted adult to groom and sexually assaulted a minor. He wasn’t a 16 yr old boy having a sexual encounter with his close in age girlfriend.

It’s comments like these that make me know that I can never report the older man who drugged and manipulated me into sex at the same age.