Can Walliams win back his wife? She still hasn't filed for divorce. He's heartbroken but hasn't given up hope. Only problem, there's a hunky rival in the wings 

By Alison Boshoff for the Daily Mail

Published: 19:20 EST, 4 June 2015 | Updated: 05:57 EST, 5 June 2015

How they were: David Walliams and wife Lara Stone cosy-up at Cannes in 2011. She went again this year, and appeared to be enjoying her freedom

How they were: David Walliams and wife Lara Stone cosy-up at Cannes in 2011. She went again this year, and appeared to be enjoying her freedom

Every night last week, David Walliams put in the performance of his life in a very expensive, well-choreographed pantomime.

Perched on one end of the Britain’s Got Talent judging panel, the 43-year-old comedian positively revelled in his role as camp dame to Simon Cowell’s ‘villain’, making jokes at his boss’s expense and exaggerating the pair’s so-called ‘bromance’.

It was a mini soap opera which was perfectly executed — and, largely, the audience loved it.

But now the BGT final is over, this perfectly managed slice of acting must come to an end. Walliams will retreat to an existence which, although busy, successful and wildly lucrative, is desperately lonely.

Since he and his wife, Lara Stone, separated in February — she took their son Alfred, two, and their beloved dog, Bert — Walliams has been completely lost, say friends.

Walking alone on Primrose Hill, North London, he has sometimes seemed a broken man, deep in gloomy thought.

On his left hand is the gold band that Lara gave him on their wedding day in 2010. One of her friends told me last week that he has not given up on the idea of winning her back.

‘David’s pushing her hard for a reconciliation,’ she says. ‘He admits he’s not perfect, but no marriage is, and he is a good person who wants the best for her and their son and will provide a financially secure future for them both.’

But what is on Lara’s mind?

So far she has held off on filing for divorce — which apparently she came close to doing around a month ago.

However, she has been spending time with a hunky old friend, photographer’s assistant Matt Easton, whom she has known since 2011 and who happens to be single.

Matt — who is young, macho and drives a motorbike — is everything Walliams is not. Recently, he has been spotted with Lara at the Lansdowne pub in North London, where she seemed to be hanging on his every word, laughing at his jokes and stories.

A source told Grazia magazine: ‘Lara and Matt first properly met at a W magazine shoot that he had arranged in 2011. They swiftly became friends. 

He’s been providing support to Lara since her marriage to David unravelled earlier this year. They’ve been meeting up in London.’

Might this warm friendship blossom into a romance? Now that Matt has separated from his girlfriend, the actress Lily Collins, there is no reason why not.

Although Lara is understood to have rented property near to her old marital home and lives there with her son, dog and nanny, she leaves them behind when she travels around the world for her modelling work. 

Judging by her party-hard antics at the Cannes Film Festival recently, she is rather enjoying having her new-found freedom.

She attended the festival as part of a contractual obligation to her paymasters at L’Oreal, who are one of the official sponsors. 

She walked the red carpet twice, and attended several other events, including the fundraiser for Aids charity Amfar.

The pictures she posted on Instagram, showing her pretending to smoke breadsticks with other models and clowning around surrounded by glasses of champagne, appear to show she had a grand old time.

While Walliams has acted the cheery pantomime dame to Simon Cowell's villain on BGT, friends say he has been lost ever since wife Lara left the family home, taking their son and dog with her

She even posted a snap of herself lying on a table, apparently exhausted by the festivities, with the caption: ‘Game. Over.’

It’s all a far cry from the cosy security blanket of life with Walliams, where she used to cook him shepherd’s pie and they would stay in watching television, night after night.

One fellow festival-goer said: ‘People did notice that Lara was drinking while she was in Cannes. There was a lot of social media stuff about her being out of shape, which must have hurt.’

Indeed, Lara is clearly rather prickly. She is now 30 — virtually pensionable as a model — and her career only really took off in 2006 at the relatively ancient age of 21. Before then, she had spent five years doing catalogue work.

In an apparent response to internet chatter about her being too big to fit into her Versace dress she posted: ‘Don’t like me? Have a seat with the rest of the bitches waiting for me to give a f***.’

 Why did they split? He is intense and bright, while she is laid back and at home with the shallow fashion crowd

You can’t imagine the urbane Walliams ever being provoked to public anger in such a way. But then the two of them are chalk and cheese.

Raised in Holland, she is liberal, funny, and ‘slightly left field’, while he is full of jokes about repression and social mores. 

Both have demons; she went through rehab in 2009 after finding herself carrying a bottle of vodka during fashion week and picking fights.

He battled self-loathing and described in his autobiography, Camp David, his numerous suicide attempts as a teenager, and struggles with depression.

After her marriage, she would allow herself a few drinks at parties. ‘I tend not to be as strict as I was before,’ she told an interviewer last year.

Why did they split? Pressures of work are to blame, and some suggest that they simply bumped up against a total culture clash — he is intense and extremely bright, while she is laid back and at home with the shallow fashion crowd.

Before the jollity of Cannes, her Instagram account was home to various melancholic statements.

‘A certain darkness is needed to see the stars,’ she posted one day. On another: ‘Today has been cancelled.’

Evidently, there has been much angst on both sides at their failure to make this five-year marriage go the distance.

Despite splitting back in February Walliams continues to wear his wedding ring (pictured), clinging to the hope that their five-year union can be saved

Despite splitting back in February Walliams continues to wear his wedding ring (pictured), clinging to the hope that their five-year union can be saved

Now she is said to be ‘strongly considering going back to him’, but can they can really rebuild a conventional marriage?

One option is to work out something where they’re together but apart. ‘They would spend Christmas and other family days together and he’d support her financially, but they’d both get more wiggle room to “do their own thing”,’ said a friend.

The details of any such arrangement could be thrashed out this summer. Nothing could be more important to Walliams, but the fact is, his professional schedule is truly packed.

Later this summer, he will be overseeing the filming of his book Billionaire Boy, which the BBC is planning as a Christmas treat. He hopes to act in the adaptation as he did in Gangsta Granny.

He also has several projects in development at King Bert, the production company he has set up with friend and fellow comedy star Miranda Hart.

The company is about to make a sitcom called That’s Rich, and has numerous other ideas in the pipeline. A stage show of his children’s book Gangsta Granny is also being developed.

More significantly, Walliams is busy writing a new book — about a young boy who tries to help his grandfather to escape a maximum security care home. 

He has also written a picture book The Bear Who Went Boo. Both should be published this autumn.

His success as an author is difficult to overstate. He earned a staggering £7 million from his books last year, his global popularity resulting in record sales for children’s books.

One title — Awful Auntie — was the second biggest-selling title of the year with 553,921 copies, earning more than £3 million.

He told an audience in New Zealand earlier this month that he prefers writing to appearing on television.

A spanner to Walliams' hopes could be Matt Easton, who is edgy, single, and has been pictured out and about with Lara recently

A spanner to Walliams' hopes could be Matt Easton, who is edgy, single, and has been pictured out and about with Lara recently

‘Books last longer,’ he said. ‘They’re something you can treasure. Books are a wonderful legacy to leave. You hope that they will survive you — and you can keep writing as you get old!’

Meanwhile, he continues to make highly lucrative ‘corporate’ appearances at £20,000 a time. His most recent was a brewery event a fortnight ago.

Despite reports, there seems no chance that he will relocate to Los Angeles to try to break Hollywood — he’s simply too busy in London.

And although it seems at odds with his ‘lonely’ status, he appears even more sociable now than he was when he was with his wife.

Recently, he has been seen at several events at Bafta, sitting next to gorgeous model Marie Helvin at a party to celebrate Hollywood titan Mel Brooks.

You might think, given his already vast fortune (£17 million and counting) and desperate feelings of heartbreak over his marriage, that all of this ceaseless activity would be the last thing he needs.

But, according to people who know him, he works hardest when he is unhappy, so perhaps all this frantic activity may help to keep despair at bay. 

When training to swim the length of the Thames for charity three years ago, he admitted the sense of having something constructive to do, the discipline of being busy, helps his mood.

In his candid autobiography, he admitted suffering from depression all his life and that sometimes he is overwhelmed by feelings of isolation and worthlessness.

He says the first time he tried to kill himself was when he was 12 years old and at scout camp. At 18, he took an overdose of painkillers.

A decade later he thought of throwing himself under a Tube train and he slit his wrists and tried to hang himself when he was in his early 30s. As he wrote in his diary: ‘If hell is in your mind, then I have been to hell.’

Now, of course, he has to cope with the pain of the breakdown of his marriage.

He didn’t feel up to attending the media launch of Britain’s Got Talent in April, instead holidaying in the Maldives with comedian Jimmy Carr and his girlfriend Caroline Copping. 

(He had told executives back in February that he wasn’t going to be available, and when news of his separation broke a few weeks later, the reason became clear.)

Simon Cowell said he had gone away to ‘clear his head.’ He added: ‘He’s been a pro, to be honest with you. In a weird way being on this show has been like an escape for him.

‘Once you are in that environment with the audience, you’re there in the moment.’

A show source added: ‘He is a complex character and has been rather up and down during filming, but that is exactly how he always is.

‘I suppose you could say he is an eccentric human being. Like all really insecure people, he just lives for the attention.

‘Everyone is aware that he is broken-hearted about Lara, but if you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t think it to see him. ‘

And, as he shuttles from one engagement to another, it seems that being busy is the one thing which is bringing this troubled man a crumb of comfort.

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