Guilty by association? Just what did Jonathan Ross know about his cronies’ crimes?

Jonathan Ross has stated he was “genuinely unaware” of the conduct now tied to Russell Brand and David Walliams at the time he was on friendly terms with both men.

What Ross said

In a statement released after Brand’s sentencing and the publication of the Walliams allegations, Ross said he is “as horrified by the revelations about David Walliams and the crimes of Russell Brand as the rest of the nation.” He described himself as once being “on friendly terms with both men” but added that during that period he had no knowledge of the behaviour later reported. His thoughts, he said, are “with the many, many women who have bravely come forward.”

Timeline with Russell Brand

Ross and Brand first met professionally in 2006 when Brand appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The friendship deepened through joint television and radio appearances. In October 2008 the pair recorded an episode of Brand’s BBC Radio 2 show in which they left explicit voicemail messages for actor Andrew Sachs about his granddaughter Georgina Baillie. The incident, later known as “Sachsgate,” led to Brand’s departure from the station and a three-month suspension for Ross. Despite the fallout, the two men remained close; Ross attended Brand’s 2010 wedding to Katy Perry and his 2017 wedding to Laura Gallacher.

Brand, 51, was convicted in 2026 of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault committed between 2004 and 2009. On 9 November he was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to nine years for rape plus 18, nine and eight months for the assaults, totalling 10 years and six months. The judge described Brand as a “sexual predator” whose status had protected him until investigative reporting in 2023 prompted complaints.

Timeline with David Walliams

Ross’s association with Walliams dates at least to 2005, when the two were photographed together. Walliams appeared regularly as a guest on Ross’s chat show. In 2004, at the British Comedy Awards, Ross delivered a scripted joke that the 15-year-old awards show was “probably going home with David Walliams.” Ross has since said the line was written by the awards team and that he believed it referred only to Walliams’s public dating of younger women. He called the joke “tasteless” and said he would not have used it had he suspected it alluded to actual events.

On 10 November 2026 the Guardian and ITV News published findings from a three-year joint investigation alleging that Walliams had made unwanted sexual advances toward several women, some of whom were teenagers at the time. Specific claims include grooming a 15-year-old fan met at a 2004 Little Britain event and a separate alleged sexual assault of another 15-year-old in 2007. Walliams denies all allegations and has stated he is “not a sexual predator” and has “not broken the law.” An ITV documentary accompanying the reports showed Ross at a charity event also attended by one of the women who later made accusations against Walliams.

Evidence of knowledge versus claims of unawareness

No captured statements, emails or contemporaneous reporting show Ross being informed of Brand’s alleged crimes or Walliams’s alleged misconduct before the recent investigations. Ross’s 2004 joke and the 2008 Sachsgate incident demonstrate public proximity to both men, but neither episode contains evidence that Ross was told of non-consensual acts. The Metropolitan Police have contacted the Guardian and ITV News to ensure potential victims know how to report; no criminal investigation of Ross has been reported.

What changes and what remains unresolved

Brand is serving his sentence. Walliams’s literary agency has dropped him, the BBC has removed Little Britain from iPlayer, and Sky has halted an upcoming adaptation of one of his books. Ross continues to present The Jonathan Ross Show. No public record contradicts his assertion of prior unawareness; whether private conversations occurred that have not surfaced is not addressed by the available reporting.