More women come forward to accuse Russell Brand after rape claims as BBC and Channel 4 face questions over ‘open secret’
MORE women have come forward with accusations against Russell Brand as the BBC and Channel 4 face questions over his alleged behaviour, according to reports.
A bombshell expose saw Brand, 48, this weekend accused of rape, sexual assault and abuse by four women.
But in the wake of the claims more alleged victims have raced to contact The Times with more accusations against the star.
BBC and Channel 4 have now launched an urgent probe into the allegations, with the Met Police urging any further potential victims to come forward.
Brand has vehemently denied the claims.
He also took to his YouTube platform blasting the accusations before the claims were made public.
Brand insisted that while he was “promiscuous”, his relationships had always been consensual.
He has been hit with accusations around controlling, abusive and predatory behaviour which were not investigated – but are said to now be being “rigorously checked”.
The BBC and Channel 4 are also facing questions of allegedly not acting on comedian’s behaviour over the years, which was said to be an “open secret” within the media giants.
One of the alleged victims, who says she was just 16 when she was “groomed” by Brand, claimed a BBC chauffeur would pick her up and take her to the star’s home.
The woman, who is known as Alice, told The Times of the Beeb car: “The first time I used it, he told me it was booked to take him to his radio show but he had a friend taking him instead so I should use that car.”
She said that the BBC driver “took me to my grandma’s house one day from Russell’s house. And then when the car picked me up from school, it was the same car… I knew that that was a BBC car”.
The Beeb has said its current investigation “contained serious allegations, spanning a number of years”.
It added: “Russell Brand worked on BBC radio programmes between 2006 and 2008 and we are urgently looking into the issues raised.”
The Times and Sunday Times say they have now been contacted by several women since Saturday with claims about Brand’s behaviour since the early 2000s.
Sources also told reporters that staff at the BBC had warned bosses about Brand’s behaviour at work at least three times.
The allegations included that he had exposed himself to a female employee and had sex with guests on his radio shows.
The Daily Telegraph reported Channel 4 has now pulled all shows linked to Brand from its website – including episodes of The Great British Bake Off and Big Brother‘s Big Mouth in which he was featured.
Netflix is now being urged to remove his comedy special, titled Re:Birth, from its platform.
It comes after one of the woman accusing Brand of rape opened up about the alleged horror – labelling him a “demon”.
The alleged victim revealed that she broke her silence after becoming sickened by the comic’s new status as a wellness influencer with millions of followers.
The woman, known as Nadia, said: “He’s saying one thing and I know the demon underneath it. He wants to help with meditation — he’s all in this wellness world.
“It just makes me so mad that he has a platform for that.”
In a resurfaced interview star Dannii Minogue claimed Brand “wouldn’t take no for an answer” and dubbed him a “vile predator”.
Russell Brand's denial 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.
And she said: “What do I want out of this? Just for him to stop. I’m sick of seeing men get away with this.”
Five women have alleged sexual assaults occurred between 2006 and 2013 in Britain and America, when Brand was working for BBC Radio 2, Channel 4 and starring in Hollywood films.
One has claimed she was a 16-year-old schoolgirl when he sexually assaulted her.