unapproved comments showing in sidebar

We can modify the code to only display approved comments, but we need to know what is it you are having displayed in your sidebar.

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I need the code in your sidebar.php

Don’t post code here: nobody can read it. Use a pastebin service: http://wordpress.pastebin.ca and post back the URL.

Replace

if ( $comments = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_author, comment_author_url, comment_ID, comment_post_ID FROM $wpdb->comments ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 5") )

with

if ( $comments = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_author, comment_author_url, comment_ID, comment_post_ID FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE $wpdb->comments.comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 5") )

This will get you to display approved comments including trackbacks and pingbacks. Should you wish to have only comments listed, use the following.

if ( $comments = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_author, comment_author_url, comment_ID, comment_post_ID FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE $wpdb->comments.comment_approved = '1' AND $wpdb->comments.comment_type = '' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 5") )

I’ve never had a theme that showed unapproved comments. It’s easy to test, though, do they appear on classic or default theme?

Usually most theme developers would not want their theme showing spam comments, I do not understand why it was not the case. More often than not, you would not need to edit the query, that is of course down to the theme developer.