Russell Brand content REMOVED from BBC’s iPlayer & Sounds sites as broadcaster rules it ‘fell below public expectations’
THE BBC has removed some Russell Brand content from its iPlayer and Sounds sites.
The broadcaster said the content was deemed to “fall below public expectations”.
It comes after four women came forward accusing Brand of rape and sexual assaults in an expose with The Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches.
Brand denies all allegations of wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for the BBC press office says: “The BBC does not ban or remove content when it is a matter of public record, unless we have justification for doing so.
“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.”
It is understood an episode of QI and a Joe Wicks podcast, both featuring Brand as a guest, were removed.
Also no longer available is an episode of The Occult with Sandi Toksvig, Noel Fielding, Alan Davies and Aisling Bea.
Brand posted a two-and-a-half-minute long video to his YouTube page on Friday, denying “serious” allegations against him.
It comes the day before the Sunday Times published its four-year-long investigation into allegations of sexual assault.
Four women claimed they were assaulted by Brand in a period that ranges from 2006 to 2013, when he was at the height of his fame.
One woman who came forward claimed he raped her against a wall at his home in Los Angeles.
She was treated at a rape crisis centre the same day, according to medical records seen by The Times.
She revealed alleged text messages between herself and Brand.
She wrote: “When a girl says no that means no.”
Brand allegedly responded to say he was “very sorry”.
Another woman, who said she worked with Brand, claimed he sexually assaulted her and then threatened to take legal action if she spoke out.
A third alleged victim, who was 16-years-old at the time, said she took a BBC chauffeur-driven car from school to Brand’s house.
She claimed Brand, then 30, was abusive during their three-month relationship in 2006.
Jordan Martin, who previously wrote a book on the alleged abuse she endured in February 2007, claimed he was emotionally and sexually abusive.
During one incident he made her brush her teeth so hard her gums bled, she claimed.
The Met Police revealed on Monday it received a report of an alleged sexual assault in Soho in 2003.
Russell Brand’s video transcript in full
Hello there, you awakening wonders.
Now this isn’t the usual type of video we make on this channel where we critique, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption because in this story I am the news.
I have received two extremely disturbing letters – well a letter and an email.
One from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper, listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks as well as some pretty stupid stuff – like my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel.
But 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 have 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. And I’m being transparent about it now as well.
And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question is there another agenda at play?
Particularly when we have seen coordinated media attacks before – like with Joe Rogan when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn’t approve of and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world using the same language.
I’m aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while ‘Watch out Russell, they are coming for you, you are getting too close to the truth, Russell Brand did not kill himself’.
I know that a year ago there was a spate of articles ‘Russell Brand is a conspiracy theorist, Russell Brand’s right wing’.
I’m aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know for ages and ages.
It’s been clear to me or at least it feels to me like there’s a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices and I mean my voice along with your voice.
I don’t mind them using my books and my stand up to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very very serious criminal allegations.
Also it’s worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct apparently in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack
Now I don’t want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I’m being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together
We are obviously going to look into this matter because it’s very, very serious. In the meantime I want you to stay close, stay awake but more important than any of that if you can, please, stay free.
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