Russell Brand returned to social media on Friday amid the wave of sexual misconduct allegations he faced this week, posting a three-minute, 19-second clip to his channels.
He doesn’t address the claims but opens the video by acknowledging the moment. “Hello, you awakening miracles,” says Brand, looking directly into the camera. “It has, of course, been an extraordinary and worrying week and I thank you very much for your support and for challenging the information presented to you.”
Brand then uses the rest of the clip to explain topics he plans to discuss in an episode of his show on Monday, which 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 deactivated the monetization of his channel in the wake of the allegations.
One of the topics he wants to address is the Trusted News Initiative, a media partnership led by global organizations such as BBC, AP, European Broadcasting Union, Financial Times, Google/YouTube, Meta, Microsoft, The Washington Post and many others was launched to combat fake news and disinformation. He claims that TNI is trying to “attack, control, stifle and paralyze” his independent media organization. Brand says he will also tackle other controversial topics such as “deep state-corporation collusion,” Big Pharma, media corruption and censorship. He closes the clip and asks his followers for support, which he needs “now more than ever and more than I ever imagined.” He concludes by saying, “More important than anything else is that you like it when you can remain free.”
Brand’s statement comes less than a week after the publication of a major report by British newspapers The Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches in which several women accused the British comedian and actor of sexual assault and rape between 2006 and 2006 In 2013, the rainfall was rapid and widespread. In response, the BBC launched an internal investigation and will remove content featuring the comedian on the grounds that “it now falls short of the public’s expectations”.
YouTube has disabled monetization on his channel, which has 6.64 million subscribers. Brand’s live comedy tour of the UK was canceled and the Met Police reported that they had received another allegation relating to a 2003 incident. Other content providers, including Paramount+, have also moved to remove incendiary content. Then BBC News published a report based on a new claim from an unnamed victim who claimed Brand exposed himself to her while they were working in the same building in Los Angeles. The alleged incident occurred in 2008.
Before any of the reports broke, Brand went ahead of the press and shared a video in which he categorically denied any claims of non-consensual encounters, claiming they were all coordinated media attacks. “These allegations relate 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. “During that period of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that back then – almost too transparent – and I’m doing the same now.”