Amanda Brunker labels Russell Brand ‘sleazy’ as she recalls past meeting amid string of abuse allegations
FORMER Miss Ireland and best-selling author Amanda Brunker has labelled Russell Brand “sleazy” as she recalled meeting the controversial star.
The ex-model made the comments after after a Dispatches documentary revealed allegations of rape, sexual assault and abuse against the comedian.
Russell Brand, 48, has denied all the allegations against him, which were made in a report from The Times and an accompanying Dispatches documentary.
In the aftermath of the explosive claims, Amanda took to social media to share her views on the star based on a previous encounter with him.
Posting on social media, the former journalist and columnist shared a snap of herself with Brand.
Captioning the post, Brunker said: “If I was still working for the Sunday World I would have written a piece about meeting this fella.
“Obviously, I don’t anymore.
“So I simply present the photo… and offer one word. Sleazy.”
Five women accused the film star, 48, of a string of abuse and controlling behaviour.
Brand’s alleged victims’ claims range from rape to sexual assault, to emotional and physical abuse.
One woman claims she was a victim of an assault at Brand’s home in 2013 after they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Another claimed that the comedian raped her up against a wall at his home in Los Angeles.
A third alleges he forced her to perform oral sex until she choked while she was just 16 and that she had to punch him in the stomach to make him stop.
A fourth woman accused him of sexually assaulting her as well as being both emotionally and physically abusive.
The fifth, Jordan Martin, claims he subjected her to emotional abuse, sexual abuse and made her brush her teeth so hard her gums bled.
BRAND DENIAL
Before the claims were published, Brand released a video denying the allegations, insisting that while he was “promiscuous”, his relationships had always been consensual.
THE BBC, Channel 4 and a Big Brother production company have all launched investigations.
A spokesperson for BBC said: “The documentary and associated reports contained serious allegations, spanning a number of years.
“Russell Brand worked on BBC radio programmes between 2006 and 2008 and we are urgently looking into the issues raised.”
Production company Banijay UK, who ran Big Brother spin-off shows fronted by Brand in the early 2000s, also released a statement.
URGENT INTERNAL INVESTIGATION
It read: “In light of the very serious allegations…relating to the alleged serious misconduct of Russell Brand produced by Endomol between 2004 and 2005 Banijay UK has launched an urgent internal investigation.
“We also ask anyone who feels that they were affected by Brand’s behaviour while working on these productions to contact us in confidence.”
They added that they would “cooperate” with any requests for information from their broadcast partners or any “external agencies”.
A Channel 4 spokesperson said that the organisation was “appalled” by the allegations.
They added: “We are determined to understand the full nature of what went on. We have carried out extensive document searches and have found no evidence to suggest the alleged incidents were brought to the attention of Channel 4.
“We will continue to review this in light of any further information we receive, including the accounts of those affected individuals.
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.