1. OVER the past couple of
years David Walliams
has thumbed through
fancy hardback autobiog-
raphies by some of his
closest friends – James
Corden, Rob Brydon and
TWO editions of Russell
Brand’s Booky Wook.
In his own distinct, mischie-
vous style he tells me he loved
“looking up the index, finding
my name and turning to the
pages about me”.
He’s only half joking.
But now 41-year-old David, once
Williams, of Banstead, Surrey, is
ready to bare his soul.
His book, with the apt title Camp
David, is no banal account of a
fluffy showbiz life — it is a searingly
honest account of a man who
struggled professionally but emerged
the other side with a supermodel
wife on his arm.
His relationship with his dad, the
stress of his hugely successful
partnership with Matt Lucas — even
the full and frank explanation of
his sexuality — it is all addressed
in detail.
And writing this as the man
who came up with The Sun’s
gay-o-meter, that seemed like an
obvious place to start.
Speaking from the Beverly Hills
Hotel in LA, he joked: “I thought
this will be the story that people
didn’t know about.
“Once you become well known
and a certain national
daily newspaper has a
gay-o-meter — naming no
names! — people have a
sense of what you’ve been
up to.
Camp
“Not necessarily what
you’re thinking or
feeling, but actually your
childhood, your early
life, your passage to
success is generally
something that they're
going to know nothing
about. I wanted to con-
centrate on that period.
“I know there is
fascination with me
because I'm camp, yet
over the years I’ve been
connected to some very
beautiful women.
“I’ve married a super-
model yet there I am
on Britain’s Got Talent
with Simon Cowell,
camping it up.”
And referring to
experiences as a teen
he added: “I guess I’m
just very honest about
my sexuality.
“I had gay experiences as a child
and remember being very confused
about that.”
He contined: “I think there will
still be people who will want it out
of me, until the day I die.
“But I’m glad I talked honestly
about my childhood sexual awaken-
ing because I think there’s plenty of
other people out there who will be
reading it and say, ‘That’s quite
normal, that happened to me. It
confused me too.’
“I’ve always been effeminate, and
I think people confuse effeminacy
with homosexuality, like they go
hand-in-hand.
“But there are plenty of effeminate
people who are straight, and plenty
of butch people who are gay.
“I’ve always been camp, I’ve
always been drawn to playing
Wonder Woman in the school
playground. I’m not worried about
it, it just seems other people are.”
A few years ago, just before
Christmas 2007, David’s dad Peter
passed away. The passages about
their relationship are tear-jerkers.
Speaking of the time when he was
starting his comedy career, David
recalled: “My dad worked for
London Transport for 40 years, and
here I was at the Jackson Lane Com-
munity Centre putting on a dress.
“He would say, ‘What’s the point
of this? It’s not a proper job.’
“And he was right. But it came
good in the end.”
It certainly did. He was the man
with the biggest smile on his face
when David successfully swam The
Channel for Comic Relief in 2006.
So why did he decide to be so
honest in the book?
David is happily married and still
decided to give deeply emotional
accounts of losing his virginity at
21, his first girlfriends and many
more private matters. Walliams —
who changed his surname when he
went into showbiz as there was
already an actor named David
Williams — explained: “I just saw
all my friends were writing books.
Candid
“I thought, ‘Well, I should do one
too.’ I thought I didn’t want to do
one unless I was going to be
totally honest. I was ready.
“My life is very settled now,
being married — I thought it was
the time to be able to be honest
about the past.”
The book has taken a year for
David to complete and was “harder
work than writing a TV series”.
The behind-the-scenes story of
Little Britain makes for some grip-
ping reading. And David, as he is
in the book, is completely candid
about his relationship with Matt.
“I just felt it was important to
be honest. I think people under-
stand that creative partnerships are
a tricky thing to get right, just ask
Noel Gallagher.
“And I felt like I wanted to
reflect that honestly. It’s really
boring to just whitewash the whole
thing, ‘Yes, we just laughed all day
every day.’
“We’re both comedians and it’s a
very difficult process what we
tried to do so, yes, there were ups
and downs in that relationship.”
David’s marriage to Lara Stone in
2010 and the last decade of his life
are not covered in the book.
It is the story up to Little
Britain — though another
instalment may come eventually.
Shaped
David said that he is looking
forward to writing the inside story
of working with Simon Cowell one
day, adding: “But that has to wait
until he sacks me first.”
In the meantime he feels writing
about past events is fairer.
David said: “It was such a big
passage of time between what I’m
writing about and now, so I didn’t
feel like I was betraying anybody
by doing it. I just felt that these
are past events and these are the
things that shaped me, and I feel
that they’re very important and
they should be in the book.”
But he jokes that he does fear
his book lacks some of the drama
found in other celebrities’ autobiog-
raphies recently.
He said: “Cheryl Cole has
got a book out and my
understanding is that
she’s very open and
honest about the break-
down in her marriage.
Now I don’t think
whatever I have in my
book competes with
the tabloid interest in
that.” And he mused:
“If only I’d married
Ashley Cole, I too
could have a big-selling book.”
A fittingly camp comment to
finish, sending the old gay-o-meter
swinging wildly into the pink once
more . . .
g.smart@the-sun.co.uk
BRUV: I DID KILL
EASTEND GEMMA A TOP Chinese politician
whose wife was jailed for
murdering a UK business-
man was yesterday facing
corruption charges.
Bo Xilai has been kicked
out of the ruling Commu-
nist Party after “abusing
his powers and committing
serious errors” over Neil
Heywood’s death last year.
His wife Gu Kailai and
his former police chief
were caged over the kill-
ing in Chongqing, where
Bo was party chief.
PAW AND ORDER
Sniffer dog Nikka is the
only certified cop in
Vaughn, New Mexico, US,
after an officer quit.
By
Showbiz Editor
THE brother of ex-EastEnders
actress Gemma McCluskie —
whose dismembered body was
found in a canal — admits kill-
ing her, a court heard yesterday.
Tony McCluskie, 35, will now face a
jury to decide if it was murder or
manslaughter, a judge said.
Gemma, 29, went missing in March
and a week later her headless
and limbless torso was found
floating near her home in Hack-
ney, East London.
Her brother, who lived with
her, was due to face trial next
month. But it was yesterday
moved to January after
Gemma’s head was found in the
Regent’s Canal earlier this month.
McCluskie, who appeared by video
link, was remanded in custody at the
Old Bailey. His barrister Jeremy Dein
QC said: “Mr McCluskie does accept
responsibility for the death of his sis-
ter. The defence will be one of
loss of control.”
Gemma played Kerry Skin-
ner in the BBC soap in 2001.
Former EastEnders co-stars
Natalie Cassidy and Brooke
Kinsella both appealed for
help to find her when she
vanished after attending a
hospital’s gala opening.
GORDON
SMART
TV FUNNYMAN AT HIS MOST SEARINGLY HONEST
ON A ROLE . . .
clockwise from above,
with Matt in Little
Britain, as a “laydee” in
TV hit, and wife Lara
By ANTHONY FRANCE
DeadBrit
bent rap
Dismembered . . . soap’s Gemma
READ THE FIRST PART OF HIS AMAZING BOOK IN TOMORROW
Sunday
16 Saturday, September 29, 2012