As the British comedian navigates legal accusations, his YouTube channel get demonetized while his shows get pulled from BBC channels.
Comedian Russell Brand has been a regular content creator on YouTube as an influencer in addition to his stand-up career. The comic’s YouTube channel has garnered 6.6 million subscribers, where he promotes wellness as well as questions the fabric of society with talk of conspiracies in a hotbed of political issues. Lately, the British jokester has been dealing with a series of sexual assault allegations from four separate parties in a joint investigation by Times of London, The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches. As with many celebrities who face serious legal accusations, their work becomes a grey area of support and distribution.
In the wake of these new allegations, the BBC, which features many comedy shows that star Brand, has decided to pull his content that streams on their online platform. In addition, YouTube has demonetized his channel while it is allowed to function, according to NBC News. YouTube issued a statement that the site has “suspended monetization” on Brand‘s channel for violating its “creator responsibility policy.” The video host platform added, “If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community.”
The BBC has stated that “some programmes” that feature the comedian-turned-actor has been “deemed to ‘fall below public expectations’” and they’ve been removed from their platform, iPlayer and Sounds. In a statement, the British Broadcasting Channel said, “There is limited content featuring Russell Brand on iPlayer and Sounds. We’ve reviewed that content and made a considered decision to remove some of it, having assessed that it now falls below public expectations.”
Brand used his channel to address the allegations straight to the audience. In a video he posted, Brand has explained, “Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. 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. Now during that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual.”