Comedian Russell Brand denied “serious criminal allegations” against him in a video he posted shortly before the release of an investigation by three British news organizations on Saturday in which four women accused him of sexual assault.
The investigation was a collaboration between The Sunday Times and The Times of London newspapers and Channel 4 Dispatches, a television program that aired a documentary about the allegations on Saturday. They reported that the women accused him of sexual assault in a series of incidents between 2006 and 2013.
Mr. Brand, an actor and former television host who has recently built a large following on his YouTube channel, where he often talks about wellness and interviews prominent conservative figures, posted a short video on social media on Friday, in to whom he explained this received notes from media organizations detailing “a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks.”
“Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks, there are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute,” Mr. Brand said in the video, adding that while he had previously spoken of a “period of promiscuity” in his life, The encounters during this time were “always amicable”.
His literary agency, Tavistock Wood, announced this weekend that it had severed ties with him, saying in a statement that it was convinced it had been “terribly misled” by him when he denied an accusation in 2020.
The allegations were made public while the 48-year-old comedian was on a short stand-up tour. At a show in northwest London on Saturday evening, he opened the evening with an indirect reference to the allegations.
“I have a lot of things I can talk to you about,” he said, according to media reports. “Of course, there are some things I absolutely cannot talk about, and I appreciate your understanding.”
As part of the investigation, a woman accused Mr. Brand of raping her against a wall in his Los Angeles home in 2012. The news organizations said the woman provided medical records confirming she had been treated at a rape crisis center. Another woman accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex on him when she was 16, even though she pushed him away.
In his video, Mr. Brand did not address the details of the allegations made by the four women, three of whom were not identified in the reports. He said there were “witnesses whose statements directly contradict the narratives” presented to him by news organizations, but according to the article, a lawyer for Mr. Brand did not respond to a request to provide such evidence. A legal representative contacted by The New York Times on Sunday did not respond to a request for comment on the specific allegations in the investigation.
Known for his raunchy, boundary-pushing humor, which at times got him into trouble, Mr. Brand rose to prominence in Britain in the 2000s with a one-man show about his heroin addiction and then as a presenter on BBC radio and Channel reality television 4 Notoriety. He entered American pop culture with a prominent role in the romantic comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” in 2008 and a remake of “Arthur” in 2011 and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.
The investigation reported on Saturday also included complaints about Brand’s behavior in the workplace, including from unnamed Channel 4 production staff. They said Brand would ask staff to approach female viewers so he could meet with them after filming, says the reports.
Channel 4 and the BBC have said in statements that they are investigating allegations against Brand from when he worked for their companies.
The Metropolitan Police in London released a statement in response to the article, saying the department had been in contact with the journalists behind the story and had urged any victims of sexual assault to report it to them.
Brand did not address the workplace complaints in his video.
Mr. Brand’s comments on his YouTube channel, which has 6.6 million followers, typically revolve around health, spirituality, so-called woke culture and free speech, and his guests have included Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Tucker Carlson and the conservative Commentator Candace Owens. In his video on Friday, he accused the “mainstream media” of launching what he called a “coordinated attack” against him. Elon Musk responded to Mr. Brand’s post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: Write: “Of course. They don’t like competition.”
Mr. Brand has spoken and written extensively about battling drug, alcohol and sex addiction, and wrote in his memoirs that he was treated for a sex addiction in 2005.
Alex Marshall contributed reporting from London.