Share
19th September 2023
07:53am BST
YouTube has reportedly suspended adverts of videos by Russell Brand after the comedian was accused of rape and sexual assault over the weekend and at the Met launched an investigation.
Sky News reports that the Google-owned company said it had suspended the monetisation of Brand's channel for "violating our Creator Responsibility policy".
"If a creator's off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community," a spokesperson for YouTube said.
Brand, 48, is currently facing numerous allegations of sexual assault highlighted in a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches and denies criminal wrongdoing. Four women have accused 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.
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.”
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.”
Related links:
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
Explore more on these topics:
