Russell Brand returned to social media on Friday amid the wave of sexual misconduct allegations he’s faced over this week by posting a three-minute, 19-second clip across his channels.
He does not address the claims but opens the video by acknowledging the moment. “Hello there, you awakening wonders,” says Brand as he looks directly into the camera. “Obviously, it’s been an extraordinary and distressing week, and I thank you very much for your support and for questioning the information that you’ve been presented with.”
Brand then uses the remainder of the clip to detail topics he plans to discuss on Monday during an episode of his show that will be shared on Rumble which will now become “the primary platform that we will be streaming from,” he explains. The decision comes after YouTube demonetized his channel in the wake of the allegations.
One of the topics he plans to address is the Trusted News Initiative, a media partnership launched by global organizations like the BBC, AP, European Broadcasting Union, Financial Times, Google/YouTube, Meta, Microsoft, The Washington Post and many others to combat fake news and disinformation. He claims that TNI is trying to “target, control, choke and shut down” his independent media organization. Brand says he’ll also tackle other controversial topics like “deep state and corporate collusion,” big pharma, media corruption and censorship. He closes the clip pleading for support from his followers, which he needs “now more than ever and more than I ever imagined I would.” He closes by saying, “More important than any of that is that you please if you can stay free.”
Brand’s statement comes less than a week after a major report was published by U.K.’s The Times, The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches, in which multiple women accused the British comedian and actor of sexual assault and rape in incidents that spanned 2006 to 2013. The fallout has been swift and widespread. The BBC launched an internal investigation in response and will remove content featuring the comedian with the reasoning “that it now falls below public expectations.”
YouTube demonetized his channel, which has 6.64 million subscribers. Brand’s live U.K. comedy tour was canceled, and the Met Police reported that they had received another allegation, related to a 2003 incident. Other content providers, including Paramount+, have also moved to remove content featuring Brand. Then, BBC News published a report based on a new allegation from an unnamed victim who claims that Brand exposed himself to her while they worked in the same Los Angeles building. That alleged incident took place in 2008.
Before any of the reports hit, Brand jumped ahead of the press and shared a video in which he categorically denied any claims of non-consensual encounters, claiming that it was all part of coordinated media attacks. “These allegations 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’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous,” he said. “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’m being transparent about it now as well.”
