As the tortured but brilliant comic's marriage breaks up after five years, were his supermodel wife's racy pictures too much for camp David Walliams?

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Even by the louche so-called standards of the fashion industry, they are the most arresting of images. Supermodel Lara Stone, instantly recognisable with her gap teeth and pale blonde beauty, grapples admiringly with pop singer Justin Bieber, 20.

The Calvin Klein campaign — which features both of them partly naked and exhibiting an apparently molten mutual sexual desire — rolled out in January this year all over billboards, glossy magazines and in a filmed advert, too.

He squeezes her thigh, and lies on top of her. She slips her hands into his jeans, slack-jawed with arousal — or at least a simulation of it.

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Unlikely couple: David Walliams and Lara Stone (together, left) married in 2010, while she posed with Justin Bieber in the Calvin Klein campaign (right)

A few weeks later, around the release of the over-hyped bonkbuster Fifty Shades Of Grey, another set of pictures of Lara Stone were released by i-D magazine. Again chiefly naked, this time the supermodel was depicted getting to grips with actor Jamie Dornan, aka the movie’s eponymous hero Christian Grey.

What can her husband David Walliams have thought of it all? Yesterday, it appears, we got our answer as it emerged that their marriage is over, after a little less than five years. Lara Stone, 31, left the marital home in North London on Tuesday night, taking their 22-month-old son, Alfred, and their dog, Bert, with her.

Sources indicate that Walliams, 43, is ‘devastated’ that she has left him and is hoping against hope for a reconciliation.

A source close to the funnyman said: ‘He is so devastated that he won’t accept that it is really over. He doesn’t seem to want to take it in. That is what he is concerned to get across, that as far as he is concerned they may still make it up. But the fact is, she has gone — and it’s done.’

The source added: ‘He has been completely besotted by her.’

However, speaking to friends of the couple yesterday, it seems that as far as Ms Stone is concerned, there is no prospect of a reconciliation.

One said that the situation was ‘already quite acrimonious’ and that this was ‘not a happy split’. He added: ‘Lara has had enough.’

An associate of Walliams, who has often spoken of his struggles with depression and suicidal impulses, told me: ‘There have been big problems with the marriage for longer than you might think.

Lara is pictured partly naked with the 20-year-old pop singer in the adverts, which were rolled out in January

‘Certainly, I was aware of the schism around six weeks ago. He didn’t broadcast it, but his friends were made aware that they were in a difficult place, that the marriage was in trouble. He is very sad about it but has been putting on a professional front.’

Perhaps they hoped the crisis would blow over. In any case, care seems to have been taken to cover up the problems in the marriage. Walliams joked when the pictures with Bieber appeared in January: ‘Why has someone photoshopped Justin Bieber’s head onto what is clearly my body?’

Walliams has, of course, long been used to his wife featuring in sexy advertising campaigns, but maybe this no-holds-barred flirtation was rather a different matter.

For Bieber was widely reported to have asked Lara out on a date during the making of the adverts, apparently not realising that she was married.

And those same reports suggest that while she turned him down, she was not remotely offended by being asked — and that they worked happily together even after he made his move.

The pair pictured in what is believed to be their second last public appearance together at Elton John's December 2014 wedding

One fashion magazine source told me: ‘She has been really sexing it up lately, while she and David have not been spending any time together. It has made the issues between them very obvious. People are speculating that David is really, really jealous and insecure about her.’

It seems that the comedian and presenter has always been acutely aware of his wife’s great beauty.

There was uneasy laughter at their first dance at their wedding in May 2010 — which was to the theme tune from Disney’s Beauty And The Beast.

As Walliams told an interviewer: ‘The thing about beauty is you do feel it is very compelling, because you hope that it rubs off on you in some way.’

Walliams and Stone became an item in September 2009, several months after they first met. He had sent her flowers and asked for a date, but she hadn’t responded at first.

She said: ‘David had been pursuing me, then he stopped and a few months later, I thought maybe we should go on a date. We got on really well, fell in love and the rest is history.’

Within weeks, he seemed to have decided he’d found ‘the one’, inscribing a gift tag at Christmas to Lara’s mum: ‘To my future mother-in-law.’

He proposed to her by, unusually, putting a £100,000 diamond ring inside a burger in January 2010. She apparently always lifts the bun to take out the salad — so he knew she would find it.

They were married in May 2010 at Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair with a reception afterwards at Shoreditch House in East London.

Despite their diversely flamboyant personalities, both have spoken of the happiness which their domestic life in North London brought.

Stone has said that Walliams has been a paragon of nappy changing and a really great ‘modern dad’, and he has praised her love of nights in, watching The X Factor and eating Shepherd’s Pie.

Only last summer she said: ‘I have a lovely job, a nice husband, a lovely baby and a dog. I don’t feel like there is anything missing from my life.’

That's awkward! David Walliams reveals he was turned down by Cheryl Fernandez-Versini - on an upcoming episode of The Graham Norton show - it was filmed before news of the reported split emerged

A reassuring moment: David told the host that he asked Louis Walsh to discreetly find out if any of the band members were single but he asked them all 'Do any of you want to go out with David Walliams?' It was a No

So what went wrong? What cannot be denied is that since mid-January, when the problems in their marriage first began to surface, Walliams has been working almost constantly.

He has filmed Britian’s Got Talent (BGT) auditions in both Manchester and Birmingham, completed book signings around the country and in Dublin, attended a children’s literature event in Dubai and filmed several sketches for Comic Relief.

On Valentine’s Day, when you might have expected him to be with his wife, Walliams posted on Twitter: ‘My @SimonCowell. Thank you so much for the Valentine’s card, chocolates and, of course, the erotic drawings you did of yourself.’

Thumbs up: He put a brave face on things on Thursday as he began his book tour in a helicopter following his alleged split from his model wife Lara Stone two days before

Dapper gent: Another tweet showed him looking smart in front of the helicopter along with the words: 'The next James Bond? #WalliamsWhirlwind'

Doing his best: The comedian is no doubt trying to get back to business following his rumoured trial separation

He and Cowell, his boss on Britain’s Got Talent, have a long-running — and some might say overstretched — joke about Walliams being desperately in love with Cowell, whom he calls ‘My Simon’.

He describes himself as the TV mogul’s ‘No 1 girl’ and features Cowell incessantly on his social media feed.

Today, he will be travelling up and down the country by helicopter to drop in to schools which have won a National Book Day competition. ‘It will go ahead as planned so not to disappoint my young fans,’ he tweeted.

He's landed! David kept his spirits up as he arrived at a primary school in aid of World Book Day after his helicopter ride 

Taking his mind off things: The 43-year-old engaged in conversation with one of the teachers who had dressed up as a Dr Seuss character 

Thanks for coming! He gave a friendly wave as he made his way inside the building 

And what about Lara? Similarly fully extended, it seems. She recently admitted that, due to her modelling commitments, sometimes several days can go by when their child is left entirely in the care of his nanny.

She has just made the cover of Vogue — yet again — and been named the face of luxury brand Kurt Geiger. She has also shot a campaign for the High street fashion chain H&M in New York.

She works very hard to keep model-thin, taking daily sessions with a personal trainer and eating healthy meals delivered ready-prepared.

Before she made her breakthrough as a model in 2008, she was rejected for being too curvy and she spoke recently of being horrified by the way her body changed during pregnancy, and of hating how big she was after the birth.

So what might the issue between them be? Rumours abound that the reason for the end of this young marriage is due to an indiscretion on one side or the other.

Walliams and Stone pictured together on their wedding day at Claridges, London, in May 2010

Walliams’s publicist Moira Bellas did not respond to emails on the subject yesterday.

Others say that, more prosaically, the problem was just that they were never well suited and that eventually it was just too difficult for them to be happy together — particularly as Walliams struggles so much to find happiness himself.

An associate of Walliams said: ‘It is a great pity as he is well-loved. The thing is, though, that they are such very different people and ultimately it has not worked out.

‘She is very chilled and cool, a bit left-field and affable, and he is much more intense. He is not at ease with himself.’

A long-time friend on the London social scene added: ‘He is a very lonely man despite the career and all the connections. He is incredibly generous, kind and considerate, but he is a quite troubled soul. I think that he is just deeply unhappy, underneath it all. If you are that unhappy, I don’t know how you can sustain a marriage.’

Meanwhile, one source says that he surprised some friends recently by performing a rather brutal imitation of his wife’s Dutch accent at a party. Was this a sign of irritation? Lara has, it must be admitted, described his sense of humour as ‘mean’ in the past.

So who will register the most surprise at this end to the union?

The bride entered the romance straight out of spending a month in rehab in South Africa for an addiction to alcohol.

She said: ‘The drinking was getting way out of control. I just didn’t recognise myself any more.

‘I always had to have some drinks with me in my bag. Just waking up shaking and then having Bloody Marys on your own, first thing in the morning — I started to feel pathetic about it.’

In an interview last summer, she admitted that she had started drinking socially again. ‘I tend not to be as strict as I was before,’ she explained. ‘I was not in a good place in my life then.’

Personal demons, it transpires, was perhaps one of the few areas of life they had in common.

In February 2009, Walliams admitted to persistent suicidal thoughts on Desert Island Discs. Declaring he would take a gun as his luxury on to the fantasy desert island, he said he would shoot himself if he got too lonely.

Walliams has been working almost constantly since mid-January, filming Britian’s Got Talent (BGT) auditions in both Manchester and Birmingham

‘I can’t stand being on my own,’ he told Kirsty Young. ‘I hate it. I have a pathological fear of being on my own.

‘When I am with my own thoughts I start to unravel and I start to think really dark thoughts, self-destructive thoughts.’ As he revealed in his candid 2012 autobiography, Camp David, he first tried to kill himself at Scout Camp when he was only 12 years old. There followed at least three other attempts and a stint in the Priory hospital, followed by medication and therapy.

Although Walliams publicly glories in his camp image, and has admitted to homosexual fumblings as a schoolboy, he insists that he is absolutely not gay.

Yes, he enjoys dressing up as a woman — he has just filmed a Comic Relief skit in which he dresses as models Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford — but he says it does not reflect his orientation.

He said: ‘Sometimes I think it would be simpler if I was [gay] because everyone thinks I am. If I was gay, I would just get on with it. I love women. I love being around women. I find them incredibly intoxicating. I have never had that feeling for a man.’

He said in his autobiography that he has always loved to get a laugh by dressing up as a ‘big fat ugly girl.’

The couple have a baby together - 22-month-old Alfred - and a dog, Bert, which Lara has taken with her

He went on: ‘Sometimes I read comments about myself complaining that my effeminacy is an act. It isn’t. I’m really camp and I always have been.’

One fashion source suggested this week that Lara had ceased to find his public cross-dressing amusing.

So the mismatch — after all, bookies were offering odds of 3-1 that the couple would make their tenth anniversary — between the Dutch supermodel and a tortured soul from Banstead has failed to last.

The final major event they attended as a couple was Sir Elton John’s wedding to David Furnish on December 21, when Miss Stone posted a picture online saying: ‘Me and David today #SHARETHELOVE.’

Two days later, they met the London theatre cast of Edward Scissorhands, where the last public photograph of the couple together was taken.

Yesterday, Walliams arrived home alone, looking pale and shattered. In the coming weeks he has to smile his way through the enforced jollity of Comic Relief, followed by the return of Britain’s Got Talent.

His mask of a clown will be needed like never before.