Russell Brand and David Walliams joked that pretending to be gay could act as a “smokescreen” for seducing women during an episode of Channel 4’s The Russell Brand Show.
The exchange took place in the programme’s first episode, broadcast on November 24, 2006, when Walliams joined Brand as a guest. The pair kissed on the lips before Walliams gave the presenter an antique top hat.
Matt Lucas, who was also appearing on the show, told them: “You are like the two gayest straight blokes there are.”
Walliams replied: “Isn’t it a wonderful smokescreen?” Brand agreed, saying: “It works wonderfully well.”
The footage came after Walliams had described Brand as “beautiful” in the hat. During the programme, Walliams was also dressed as a woman and leaned across Brand on a couch.
Walliams recalled that he had initially disliked Brand when they met, telling him: “I hated you when I first met you on that boat. You were on heroin then.”
Brand responded: “Oh yes, I was a very different girl then.”
The television appearance came two days after the pair performed together at Little Britain’s Big Night, a charity gala for Comic Relief at the Hammersmith Apollo.
Walliams continued to support Brand after the comedian was forced out of the BBC for verbally abusing Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.
In pre-recorded calls broadcast on Radio 2, Brand said he had had sex with Mr Sachs’s granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. Brand and Jonathan Ross later apologised to Mr Sachs after a public backlash.
Brand, 51, was convicted at Southwark Crown Court last week of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. His self-publicised history of drug use was not put before the jury.
He is in HMP Wandsworth ahead of a sentencing hearing before Mr Justice Bennathan.
