Comedian Russell Brand denied “serious criminal allegations” against him in a video he posted shortly before three British news organizations on Saturday published an investigation in which four women accused him of sexual assault.
The research was a collaboration between Sunday weather and the newspapers The Times of London, and Channel 4 Dispatches, a television program that broadcast a documentary film about Saturday’s accusations. They reported that the women had accused him of sexual assault in a series of incidents between 2006 and 2013.
Brand, an actor and former television host who has recently built a large following on his YouTube channel, where he often opines on wellness and interviews prominent conservative figures, posted a short video on social media on Friday in which he said he had received notes from media organizations listing “a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks.”
“Amidst this litany of surprising and quite baroque attacks, there are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute,” Brand said in the video, adding that while she has previously spoken about a “time of promiscuity” in her life, the encounters During that time they were “always consensual.”
His literary agency, Tavistock Wood, announced this weekend that it had cut ties with him and said in a statement that it believed it had been “horribly misled” by him when he denied an allegation in 2020.
The allegations were published while the comedian, 48, was on a brief stand-up tour. At a show in north-west London on Saturday night, he opened the evening with an oblique reference to the allegations.
“I have a lot of things to talk to you about,” he said. according to media reports. “Obviously there are some things I can’t talk about at all and I appreciate your understanding.”
In the investigation, a woman accused Brand of raping her against a wall in his Los Angeles home in 2012. News organizations said the woman had provided medical records confirming she had been treated at a rape crisis center. Another woman accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex on him when she was 16, even though she rejected him.
In his video, Brand did not address the details of the allegations by the four women, three of whom were not identified in the reports. He said there were “witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives” presented to him by news organizations, but according to the article, a lawyer for Mr. Brand did not respond to a question about the provision of such evidence, nor did a legal representative respond. to a request for comment on the specific allegations.
Known for his obscene and piercing humor that has led him in trouble Mr Brand’s fame at times grew in Britain in the 2000s with a one-man show about his heroin addiction, and later as a radio presenter for the BBC and Channel 4 television. He burst into American pop culture with a featured role in the romantic comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” in 2008 and a remake of “Arthur” in 2011, and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.
Now, Mr. Brand’s comments on his YouTube channel, which has 6.6 million followers, tend to revolve around health, spirituality, so-called woke culture and free speech, and among his guests are included Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Tucker Carlson and conservative commentator Candace Owens. In her video on Friday, she accused the “mainstream media” of launching what she called a “coordinated attack” against him. Elon Musk responded to Brand’s post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, writing: “Of course. They don’t like competition.”
Mr. Brand has spoken and written extensively about battling drug, alcohol and sex addictions, writing in his memoirs that it was treaty for sex addiction in 2005.
Alex Marshall contributed reporting from London.
