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Celebrities such as Russell Brand and David Walliams achieved something that everyone wants—to break out of the mundanity of everyday life
By Frankie Murden
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Saturday 14 November 2026
Issue 3032
Celebrities have achieved something that everyone wants
In addition to their money, Brand and Walliams used their celebrity status to exercise power over women.
Brand got his break presenting TV’s Big Brother’s Big Mouth in 2004—a recap of the reality TV show where a studio audience would discuss episodes.
The hugely popular Little Britain revolved around just two actors—Walliams and Matt Lucas.
Crucially, both shows played with the idea of “reality”. Big Brother was supposedly about “normal people” being themselves.
Little Britain, though clearly fictional, was a satirical show with different characters—the chav, the benefit scrounger, biddies from the Women’s Institute.
Both shows invited audiences to relate to the people and characters on screen. Viewers were encouraged to compare their own experiences, values and opinions with those they watched.
And, because these shows depended on “authenticity,” the viewing public saw their stars as relatable in ways that actors playing a part in a soap opera are not.
In a society where school and work punish individuality and demand uniformity, a special status is given to those whose personalities are revered.
These new celebrities had achieved something that everyone wants—to break out of the mundanity of everyday life, the gruelling nature of work and a society where people have so little time and energy that they spend their evenings sitting down to watch TV.
They became famous and rich simply by being themselves. They were like you, but they had reached a higher status.
Celebrities’ private lives are must-read news, and their opinions matter more than yours. Unlike yours, their lives are taken seriously. In turn, their lives become an escape from the drudgery of our own.
Celebrity status changes them too. It detaches them from wider society and makes their experiences a world away from those of the people who obsess over them.
This manufactured idea of “reality”, combined with their elevated status, gave these men even greater respectability.
Institutions—including the BBC, Channel 4 and HarperCollins, and even the British state, which awarded Walliams an OBE—trusted them and gave them legitimacy. This is because these men were huge money makers. Walliams’ British book sales alone have raked in £156 million for
HarperCollins—no wonder the publisher choose to ignore his pursuit of young women working there.
And for years, Brand and Walliams used their gigs and industry events to meet women and ingratiate themselves with them.
Brand regularly picked women up from his comedy gigs, then abused them in dressing rooms or at his house. Women report that Walliams would contact them about their career—offering to read scripts or help get them internships.
A relationship with these celebrities, in any capacity, offered a rung on the career ladder and a glimpse of a different sort of life under capitalism.
Their social power went hand in hand with huge wealth. Walliams was known for his blue Aston Martin and his five-storey house. Brand is thought to own property worth at least £5 million.
Critics often refer to the “cult of celebrity” as a put down overwhelmingly working class people. But the reality is that the system cultivates such people, using them as a distraction from the mundanity to which most people are subjected.