YouTube suspends Russell Brand’s channel from earning money

YouTube has cut off an income stream for Russell Brand, who is facing rape and sexual assault allegations. See what it means for the embattled comedian.

On Tuesday YouTube suspended Russell Brand’s channel from receiving money for “violating our Creator and Responsibility” content, following the allegations of rape and sex attacks.

It means he will no longer be able to make money from his 6.6million subscribers on the platform on which he runs a health and yoga channel.

He often espouses his views on the channel about the war in Ukraine.

The BBC faced growing pressure to come clean about the full history of complaints it received about the former comic when he was one of its star presenters.

Russell Brand’s YouTube channel has been suspended from making money. Picture: AFP

The corporation refused to answer Freedom of Information (FoI) requests from The Times and The Sunday Times for information about concerns raised by staff who worked with Brand, when he was a presenter on Radio 2 saying it contained Brand’s “personal data”.

One woman complained to the BBC that he exposed himself to a female colleague, had sex with BBC competition winners and used a BBC chauffeur to collect a 16-year-old girlfriend from school.

BRAND ‘SNOGGED’ MEGHAN MARKLE; NEW ACCUSER COMES OUT

Comedian Russell Brand faces new claims of sexual assault as more women contacted police in the wake of bombshell rape and abuse allegations.

It comes as renewed scrutiny is placed on Brand’s past jokes and comments about women, including the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, who he bragged about “snogging” while he was “out of it” during a period of addiction.

London’s Metropolitan Police urged more women to come forward after a fifth accuser alleged sexual assault dating back to 2003, three years prior to four previously reported allegations from the height of Brand’s fame between 2006 and 2013.

Brand denies the bombshell allegations he raped and sexually abused the women, which his father, Ron Brand, suggested in a Facebook post were part of a “vendetta” against the British star pushed at the BBC.

“Is this seriously the most important thing happening in this world? Immigrants? Cost of living? 10s of thousands killed in Ukraine? Who is prioritising at BBC News. Who is really driving this vendetta?” he wrote.

Russell Brand leaves the Troubabour Wembley Park theatre in northwest London after performing a comedy set. Picture: Getty Images

“The Russell Brand Vendetta. Like a man who owns an orchard being accused of Stealing an Apple?” he added in another post.

Following the allegations breaking on the weekend, the Met police said they’re working with the news outlets who published the claims to contact alleged victims as part of their investigations.

“The Met received a report of a sexual assault which was alleged to have taken place in Soho in central London in 2003. Officers are in contact with the woman and will be providing her with support,” police said in a statement.

“We continue to encourage anyone who believes they may have been a victim of a sexual offence, no matter how long ago it was, to contact us.”

RENEWED SCRUTINY OF BRAND’S PAST

As police and media look further back into the period of the allegations, past comments from ex-girlfriends and former co-stars cast the comedian’s jokes in a new light.

Actor Kristen Bell warned Brand not to “try anything” on the set of Forgetting Sarah Marshall or she would “lop his nuts off”, she said in a 2010 interview.

During an interview for Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast in 2013, Brand joked about being a “mundane bloke” other than he “raped someone once”. While the same year, he was told off by Jimmy Fallon for overly bouncing Katharine McPhee on his lap, forcing the talk show host to plead with Brand to “stop” and “look away”.

In a 2018 interview, Brand bragged about kissing Ms Markle before the year she broke out in TV sitcom, Suits.

“She was in a film that I was in … ‘Get Him to the Greek’ it was called. Bloody good film,” he said on the British talk show “Loose Women” just a week before Ms Markle married Prince Harry.

“I didn’t know her at the time because she wasn’t married to a royal person, so I wasn’t paying attention,” Brand noted, adding that his memory was hazy during that period of drug addiction.

“I think I planted one on her in the scene. … It was scripted in the scene. I only know this because I think I saw a clip of it somewhere.”

He joked someone at her wedding to Prince Harry should object to their marriage and shout out, “Yeah, Russell Brand snogged her in that film!”

Kristen Bell told Russell Brand she would ‘lop his nuts off’ if he tried anything on the set of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Picture: Supplied

MULTIPLE INVESTIGATIONS LAUNCHED

Brand, who was due to perform at The Theatre Royal in Windsor this week, has had his tour dates cancelled by promoters after the allegations were published.

Publisher Bluebird told The Bookseller it has “paused all future publishing” of Brand’s work due to the “serious allegations.” Brand was due to release Recovery: The Workbook later this year.

The Times said it had been contacted by “several women” with further claims that would be “rigorously checked”, while Channel 4 asked third-party production companies to report “historical allegations”, according to an email seen by Deadline.

Production company Banijay launched an internal investigation into assaults alleged to have taken place during the creation of Big Brother’s Big Mouth on Channel 4 in the 2000s.

Brand’s episodes on Channel 4, including of The Great British Bake Off, were pulled from its streaming service.

BRAND ‘DISAPPEARED’ FROM TV AFTER PAST CLAIMS

Brand all but disappeared from TV screens in 2018 after being repeatedly accused of being a “sexual predator” during the recording Comedy Central’s Roast Battle, according to Deadline.

Brand, who was a judge on the series, lasted a single season after he himself was roasted on-camera over allegations he had sexually assaulted women. Three sources close to the production company Fulwell 73 told the outlet that Roast Battle judge Katherine Ryan made several allegations during filming, but that they were cut from the final edit of the show.

In an appearance on BBC series Louis Theroux Interviews in 2022, Ryan spoke about how she confronted her then-unnamed co-star.

“I, in front of loads of people, in the format of the show, said to this person’s face that they are a predator,” she said, while adding that she had not been personally assaulted.

Caroline Nokes, chairwoman of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, told Times Radio that the women who have come forward with allegations against “need to be brave again” and go to the police.

“It feels like this is trial by media. And while there’s absolutely no doubt that we need to shine some sunlight on what has gone on, I think what matters most is that there is a formal police investigation and that if there is good cause, criminal charges be brought,” she said.

Originally published as YouTube suspends Russell Brand’s channel from earning money