One of the Biggest Selling Children's Authors of the Century Just Got Dropped By His Publisher

The entertainment business does not like change or consequences. In the post-#MeToo market, conglomerates feel little incentive to punish or step away from accused abusers if their profit margins are big enough. Just look at TERF McGee and her wizards who magicked away their poop rather than invent the toilet. So, when a massive figure in the biz, someone who has made millions of dollars, gets dropped entirely by their bosses, you know something really bad has happened. Exhibit A: David Walliams.

The comedian and children’s author has sold more than 50 million books worldwide. He’s one of the biggest names in publishing in the UK and helped to kickstart an entire era of celebrity children’s authors. He’s also infamous for doing blackface, yellowface, and doing Nazi salutes during his “comedy.” None of this really hurt his career. He remained wildly popular as a writer and was frequently heralded as one of the authors who got kids reading (a claim I never fully believed, by the way.) Said books were also widely criticized for harmful stereotypes. But they sold so many copies. You couldn’t go into any bookshop in the UK without being barraged by David Walliams books. In 2018, Walliams’s books constituted 44% of all sales of HarperCollins children’s titles. And now, he’s about to be phased out of the scene altogether.

Last year, HarperCollins terminated Walliams’ contract following a year-long investigation into alleged misconduct and harassment towards young women who worked at the company. One former employee was given a major payoff to stay silent. Others were told to only visit Walliams in pairs to avoid his lechery. This week, it was announced that HarperCollins will no longer be selling or reprinting his older books. He has been moved to the backlist. Soon, you won’t be able to buy a new Walliams book in your local shop.

This is a massive deal. I cannot even begin to stress how unexpected this is. Usually, publishers wait until the dust settles and return to business as usual. Even after dropping Walliams, we had all just assumed they’d keep his back-catalogue in circulation. Nope! How do you go from 50 million copies sold to all but being erased by your publisher? It feels like something extremely dark is on the horizon, riight?

To provide a little extra context, it’s worth noting that Walliams’ sales were down. According to The Telegraph, they’d fallen by 60% by the Summer of 2025. He was falling out of fashion and being replaced by less toxic authors. It’s always far easier to get rid of the rot when it’s not making you big bucks. But you also can’t take a guy like this on tour anymore. Can you imagine taking him on school visits to do signings for kids after everything that’s happened? Hey, children, do you want to meet the guy who women couldn’t be left alone with at their place of work? Don’t we all love wildly racist books for our offspring?

We’ll keep an eye out for more David Walliams news as it unfolds. And boy, it’s definitely going to unfold.