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20th September 2023
10:35am BST
Spotify has said it has no plans to remove Russell Brand's content from its platform as broadcasters race to hide the comedian's content from their steaming platforms following a string of sexual abuse allegations.
The Swedish music and podcast streaming giant, which has over half a billion users, will only remove content that directly breaches its terms and conditions, not over concerns about its creator.
However, podcast producer Acast, which provides the platform for Brand's Under The Skin podcast and distributes it across the internet, said it has turned off ads on the show following reports over the weekend - following a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches - accusing him of multiple sex crimes. Brand denies all criminal wrongdoing.
The podcast is described as: "A weekly interview series from Russell Brand that examines what's beneath the surface—of the people we admire, the ideas that define our time, and the history we’re told."
YouTube has already announced it has suspended ads on the 48-year-old's content; Brand has more than 6.6 million subscribers on the platform. And both the BBC and Channel 4 have begun removing content featuring Brand from their platforms, including episodes of QI and The Great Celebrity Bake Off, in which he made a biscuits in the shape of a vagina.
In the Times and Dispatches reports, four women have accused Brand of sexual assaults between 2006 and 2013, one of whom was 16 at the time and led to other alleged victims coming forward. The Met has since announced that it is investigating an alleged incident involving Brand from 2003.
BBC director-general Tim Davie said some of Brand's content was "completely unacceptable", and announced that Peter Johnston, director of editorial complaints, would be leading a review into the YouTubber's time at the corporation.
Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairwoman Dame Caroline Dinenage has also written to the BBC, Channel 4 and TikTok to request further details on what actions they are taking in response to the allegations and to GB News in relation to their coverage of the claims.
The remaining shows of Brand's Bipolarisation tour have also been postponed and Netflix has reportedly been urged to remove his comedy special from its catalogue.
In the documentary aired Saturday, 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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