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21st September 2023
08:27am BST
Katherine Ryan - who caused a huge stir last year when she said it was an "open secret" that there was a predator in the TV industry - has broken her silence since Russell Brand was accused of sexual assault.
The comedian and writer reportedly joked about the "elephant in the room" on Wednesday evening at the RTS Cambridge, MailOnline reported.
However, she reportedly later insisted the remark was in reference to her recent two-stone weight loss, as she avoided any references to Brand who was the focus of a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches over the weekend.
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In the report, four women accused 48-year-old Brand of sexual assaults between 2006 and 2013, one of whom was 16 at the time, and the Met Police has urged any alleged victims to contact them and have said it is investigating another allegation from 2003. The report has since led to further alleged victims coming forward. Brand denies any criminal wrongdoing.
In November 2022, Ryan made headlines after telling Louis Theroux about an “open secret” in the TV industry while being interviewed for a series he was doing for the BBC. Ryan, 40, said she had “called him a predator to his face and in front of everyone that day.” She did not name the star or detail when and where she had made the accusation for legal reasons.
Deadline has since said it has confirmed with multiple sources that the Canadian was referring to Brand and Roast Battle.
Brand worked alongside Ryan as a judge for one season of Comedy Central's Roast Battle in 2018, after reportedly being left angry when his fellow comic allegedly called him out on camera. The comments never made the final cut, but ultimately led to Brand not returning to the programme for another season.
Deadline reported Brand was "absolutely furious" after being "targeted" by Ryan whose interview with Theroux has resurfaced in recent days.
In the documentary, one of Brand’s accusers alleged he raped her against a wall in his LA home and that she sought treatment at a rape crisis centre the same day. Another alleged he assaulted her when she was aged 16 during an emotionally abusive and controlling relationship. A third claims Brand sexually assaulted her in Los Angeles and later threatened to take legal action if she spoke about the allegation to anyone else. And a fourth described being sexually assaulted by Brand and also claimed he was both physically and emotionally abusive towards her.
In a statement on Friday ahead of the report, Brand said the allegations against him “pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies, and as I have written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.”
He continued: “Now during that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I am being transparent about it now as well.
“To see that transparency metastasised into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question – is there another agenda at play?”
Brand has claimed that there is witnesses whose evidence “directly contradicts the narrative that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct.”
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