LONDON (AP) — British children's author and comedian David Walliams has denied allegations of inappropriate behavior after publisher HarperCollins dropped him.
Walliams, 54, is one of the U.K.'s bestselling children's book authors and a former judge on the TV show “Britain's Got Talent.”
In a statement on Friday, HarperCollins said: "After careful consideration, and under the leadership of its new CEO, HarperCollins UK has decided not to publish any new titles by David Walliams. The author is aware of this decision.”
A spokesperson for Walliams said in a statement that he “has never been informed of any allegations raised against him by HarperCollins.”
“He was not party to any investigation or given any opportunity to answer questions. David strongly denies that he has behaved inappropriately and is taking legal advice," the statement said.
The publisher said it would not comment on internal matters, “to respect the privacy of individuals.”
“HarperCollins takes employee wellbeing extremely seriously and has processes in place for reporting and investigating concerns," it said.
Walliams has published over 40 children's books and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, according to his website. Several of them, including “Gangsta Granny,” have been adapted into a BBC comedy dramas and stage productions.
Walliams left his role as judge on “Britain's Got Talent” in 2022 after apologizing for making “disrespectful comments” about auditioning contestants.
FILE - TV personality, comedian and author David Walliams arrives in the Royal box on Centre Court during the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Tuesday, July 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
FILE - David Walliams poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film "The Choral " during the London film festival in London, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine’s emergency service said Saturday, as a a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war,
The discussions are part of the Trump administration's monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week. Ukraine's chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the center of the strike late Friday, the emergency service said in a Telegram post. Trucks caught fire in the parking lot and cars were also damaged.
The port was struck with ballistic missiles, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region.
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge reports of the attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that over the previous day, it had struck unspecified “transport and storage infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” along with energy facilities and those supplying Kyiv's war effort.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil rig, the military patrol ship Okhotnik and other facilities, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Saturday. It said the ship was patrolling in the Caspian Sea near an oil and gas production platform. The extent of the damage was still being clarified, it said.
The drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil and gas field as also hit. The facility is operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil. Ukrainian drones also struck a radar system in the Krasnosilske area of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian government or Lukoil. The company is one of two Russian oil majors — alongside state-owned Gazprom — targeted by recent U.S. sanctions that aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue that helps it sustain the war.
Kyiv has used similar arguments to justify months of long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which it says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin's all-out invasion, soon to enter its fifth year.
U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signaled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow's troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.
On Friday, Putin voiced confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.
EU leaders agreed to provide 90 billion euros ($106 billion) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed on capital markets.
After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need 137 billion euros ($161 billion) in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needs the money by spring.
Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is set to meet with Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on Saturday, according to a U.S. official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that hasn’t yet been publicly announced.
The official said Witkoff and Kushner will sit down with Dmitriev, after meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin for talks on U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, territorial concessions and other aspects of the American-authored plan.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said late Friday that a Ukrainian delegation had met with American and European partners in the U.S. He gave few details, but said they agreed to continue “joint work in the near future.”
Asked about the meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow was preparing for contacts with the U.S. to learn about the results of the meetings in Berlin, but he didn’t give details.
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A rescue worker walks in front of a residential house damaged after a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
