David Walliams and Russell Brand’s celebrity friends have some serious questions to answer, writes Kelvin MacKenzie

I’m talking about the celebrity pals of David Walliams and Russell Brand.

Let’s go through the list of the disappeared.

First up Walliams old chum Matt Lucas who has kept totally shtum since the allegations of grooming under-age girls first surfaced.

Lucas and Walliams shot to national prominence when they co-created Little Britain.

Until last year the pair were co-hosts of the podcast Making a Scene.

The Times reports that every morning Lucas sends a message to his one million followers on X but the greeting has been absent since the beginning of last week.

Presumably Mr Lucas would be concerned that his followers might turn against him online and leave dreadful messages.

So what? That’s the price you pay tweeting.

In any event it would be interesting to know if he had ever witnessed any actions by Walliams that might have given a clue to his sexual interests.

Amanda Holden, a fellow judge on Britain’s Got Talent, has unusually for her been tongue tied.

She appears on Heart Breakfast with the rather good Jamie Theakston and on this Wednesday’s show the news bulletins were full of the Walliams story, but interestingly Ms Holden never said a word despite working together for years.

There has not been a squeak out of Simon Cowell about the allegations.

However his people have let it be known that he has had no contact with Walliams since he left the show in 2022 after it was discovered he was often rude about contestants.

Alesha Dixon, another BGT judge, has taken a similar vow of omerta.

It’s basically true of everybody that they are keeping their heads down and hope it all goes away.

That’s usually true.

I don’t think it’s true of Jonathan Ross and nor should it be.

He had to say something as he was good friends with both Walliams and Brand.

And what he said annoyed me.

He made clear that a gag he made at a comedy awards evening about Walliams going home with a 15-year-old was not written by him.

What’s that got to do with it.

The talent is very powerful in television.

Had he said in the run through – it won’t have been the first time he had read the gag – that he was uncomfortable with the joke it would have been scrubbed.

But because there was as good laugh in it he steamed on.

In his statement Ross said the following; “There was a time in my life when I was on friendly terms with both men, and during that period I was genuinely unaware of their conduct.” I accept that.

But if you are friends with someone you do know both their good points and their bad points.

Was there nothing that made Ross alarmed?

After all he and Brand were kicked off the BBC for the humiliation of Andrew Sachs’s granddaughter.

That must have been a clue.

I think a spell off the screen would do both Ross and the viewers a good turn.