The recent imprisonment of Russell Brand for rape and sexual assault, alongside ongoing allegations of sexual misconduct against comedian and children’s author David Walliams, has triggered an intense reassessment of 2000s popular culture. This scrutiny extends beyond the specific individuals involved to the industry structures that enabled such behavior. While Walliams has denied the allegations leveled against him in reporting by and ITV News, he currently remains the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation regarding separate claims of sexual misconduct.
As these legal cases unfold, archival footage from the period is being viewed through a more critical lens. In a 2008 episode of the BBC Two panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks, host Simon Amstell remarked to choreographer Arlene Phillips, the program’s only woman, that she looked like she ran a “good whore house.” Phillips responded with a story, appearing to use faux sincerity, about seeking out dancers with “very special abilities” who were interested in partying post-filming. Another panelist, TV presenter Dermot O’Leary, joined the exchange by miming a phone call, asking, “When you’re dancing tonight, do you mind having sex afterwards?” Then 28, spoke on air about wanting to take Church’s virginity when she turned 16, the Radio 1 presenter Chris Moyles. However, the cruel logic of the tabloids is that they build you up only to knock you down,” he said. In 2008, the journalist Mary O’Hara described how comic Johnny Vegas had brought a young woman on stage at a London gig, where he groped her and repeatedly pulled up her skirt as she tried to cover herself. “Most disturb. During live performances of the TV sketch show Little Britain, Walliams played Des Kaye, a former children’s entertainer and sex offender who pulled down audience members’ trousers on stage and attempted to kiss them.
Sophie Gilbert, author of Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, describes the era’s output as “profoundly, openly, cheerfully horrible to women.” She highlights a shift in this period where third-wave feminism evolved into postfeminism, often at the expense of women’s dignity. Examples cited include Geri Halliwell and Kylie Minogue kissing on TFI Friday as a spectacle for host Chris Evans, and the intense, often brutal, scrutiny of Victoria Beckham’s body mere weeks after she gave birth.
The media environment of the 90s and 2000s frequently commodified and degraded young female stars. Paparazzi pursued celebrities relentlessly, often capturing compromising images. In 2004, Heat magazine published a special issue focusing on celebrity cellulite, featuring circled images of stars like Beyoncé and Martine McCutcheon. Singer Charlotte Church faced similar treatment at age 15, when a website published a countdown to her 16th birthday to mark the age of consent—a story subsequently reported by the Sun. Church, reflecting on her past, described being turned into a “caricature” that was sexualized, patronized, and ridiculed by public discourse. Upskirt pictures were published in magazines. In 2004, the highly successful celebrity magazine Heat devoted an entire special to celebrity cellulite, circling supposedly offending patches of skin on the legs of women including Beyoncé and former EastEnders star Martine McCutcheon. Including Harry Potter star Emma Watson, similar countdowns targeted other young celebrities. “I was made into this caricature: sexualised, patronised, ridiculed,” Church recently reflected. “I feel my character, the narrative of who I was in the world, was taken from me, and made into something salacious, or something to be ridiculed.”. In a 2012 survey, Tippett found that 57.8% of respondents classified lads’ magazines as “soft pornography”, despite their mainstream acceptance. “Women who objected risked being labelled prudish, humourless or outdated,” she said. “There was considerable pressure either to appear ‘in on the joke’ or to remain silent.
Britney Spears also endured highly intrusive coverage. In her memoir, The Woman in Me, she details how reporters frequently questioned her about her anatomy and the state of her virginity. Ben Widdicombe, a former New York gossip columnist, recalls the era’s post-9/11 craving for trivial celebrity news, noting that he feared the media would “hound Britney to her death.” He emphasizes that such media patterns were driven by audience demand, noting there is no media without an audience. A former New York gossip columnist who examined the era in his memoir, Gatecrasher, recalled how the aftermath of 9/11 created an appetite for frivolous celebrity coverage; a phenomenon felt far beyond the US. “I saw an insatiable hunger for light, ‘sexy’ stories, ben Widdicombe.
This systemic misogyny was not entirely unchallenged at the time, though dissenting voices were frequently suppressed by the dominant entertainment industry. Comedian Jo Caulfield noted that such behavior was only “acceptable” to the men who dominated television, asserting that these networks actively protected their stars. Academic Anna Tippett points out that the common defense that it was simply “a different time” ignores the women who were vocal about these issues during that period. Or symptomatic of a wider culture in which women’s bodies and sexuality were routinely used as entertainment, were they simply jokes.
Comedy often served as a front line for this behavior, blurring the line between provocation and harassment. Russell Brand’s career was built upon a persona of sexual excess. Gilbert suggests that producers tolerated his transgressions because they understood that such behavior was central to his popular appeal. This pattern of exploitation was echoed on shows like The Big Fat Quiz of the Year in 2007, where Jonathan Ross suggested moving a 21-year-old Lily Allen away from Brand and Noel Fielding so she could “go home with her dress still on.” While Allen laughed at the time, she later remarked that in retrospect, the comment was “really horrendous.” Or did they stand alongside the ubiquity of topless models on Page 3 of tabloid newspapers and so-called “lads’ mags”, which mixed lifestyle and often tasteless humour with overtly sexual images as a backdrop to something darker, were they merely knockabout fun. Did the atmosphere of the time make more serious misconduct easier to overlook. In 2007, a 21-year-old Lily Allen appeared on Channel 4’s The Big Fat Quiz of the Year; again the only woman on the panel. We’re not rapists,” Fielding said. “What if, horror of horrors, he ain’t even done a rape. According to but rewatching the footage years later made her uncomfortable, she, In 2023. “In retrospect, that’s really horrendous. “He would bite my face and I would tell him I didn’t like it and he would chase me around,” she recalled this week. “I would giggle because I was 22 and it was overwhelming. His representatives have been contacted for comment for this article. Looking back, she said, she understood the behaviour as physical assault.
Jonathan Ross has since apologized for a 2004 remark regarding the British Comedy Awards, where he likened 15-year-olds to being “drunk, unpredictable and probably going home with David Walliams.” Experts like Tara Joshi, co-host of the podcast Twenty Twenty, warn against viewing the 2000s as a finished chapter.
She notes that while public conversation has shifted, the underlying dynamics of lad culture and misogyny remain present.
The fact that Brand continued working in major productions into the 2020s highlights how deeply ingrained this culture remains. As industry analyst Seale notes, celebrities often felt “untouchable” due to their financial influence, making it difficult for those dependent on their success to challenge abusive conduct.
