Russell Brand is being investigated in the U.K. After a joint exposé by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches accused the 48-year-old comedian of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse over a seven-year period, the Metropolitan Police told ET that they’re investigating him. Brand has denied the claims against him.
Per the Met, since the exposé, they’ve received a number of allegations of sexual offenses in London, as well as a number of allegations of sexual offenses committed elsewhere in the country. The Met is investigating the claims, all of which are non-recent, they said.
Officers will be offering specialist support to all of the women who have made allegations. The investigation is being carried out by detectives in the Met’s Central Specialist Crime Command, led by Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy.
“We continue to encourage anyone who believes they may have been a victim of a sexual offense, no matter how long ago it was, to contact us,” Furphy told ET in a statement. “We understand it can feel like a difficult step to take and I want to reassure that we have a team of specialist officers available to advise and support.”
The four women included in the exposé claimed the sexual assaults happened between 2006 and 2013. One day before the story was published, Brand took to social media to “absolutely refute” its claims, which he referred to as “extremely egregious and aggressive attacks.”
“As I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual… I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent,” Brand said in part. “And I’m being transparent about it now as well. And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny.”
In light of the allegations against Brand, his live tour has been postponed and YouTube has suspended his ability to monetize his channel on the platform.
He was always a creep that lad. Just waiting for Noel Fielding and David Walliams next.