Jonathan Ross is at the epicentre of a noughties reckoning

Résumé détaillé

It will take more contrition and even more candour to save Ross from becoming Russell Brand and David Walliams’s collateral damage ...

It’s a bad week to be a celebrity sex pest, and a slightly less bad week to be Jonathan Ross.The broadcaster’s former friendships with convicted rapist Russell Brand, and David Walliams who has been accused of (and denies) grooming and sexual harassment, have put him at the uncomfortable epicentre of a reckoning on the noughties and its famous men, which has left him no choice but to speak. It appears Noel Fielding, Matt Lucas, Jimmy Carr, and Simon Cowell need longer to formulate a condemnation.

Wossy is as horrified as the rest of the nation about the crimes of one and “revelations” about the other. He was “genuinely unaware of their conduct” and, well, I should think so too – the alternative would be unconscionable. But I’m not sure that this cursory attempt to distance himself – which he has had several years to strategise, given the “open secret” of the claims – will be anywhere near enough to avoid the contagion of these men and their downfalls.

The thing about all these shocking exposés is that much of our emotion and revulsion comes not just from the details about what Brand did and what Walliams is alleged to have done, but the culture that allowed it. We cannot denounce their behaviour or the ways famous men abuse their power without casting our minds back to the mid-noughties and remembering exactly who gave them it.

Unfortunately for Jonathan Ross, no matter that he did not commit crimes and no matter how many years have passed and no matter how much he tries to compensate for it, he was still a prominent part of that culture. When we look back at old panel show clips and interviews and ask ourselves how Russell Brand managed to hide in plain sight for so long when he was so obviously a sleazy, dirty, nasty piece of work, far too often Jonathan Ross was sitting a few feet away from him, making his sexual proclivities the butt of the joke.

On 2007’s Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Ross swapped seats to protect a 22-year-old Lily Allen, “the only sexually…

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