(London) A British politician on Monday urged police to investigate allegations of sexual assault against comedian Russell Brand.
Brand denies sexual assault allegations made by four women in Channel 4 TV documentary and newspapers The Times And Sunday Times. Among the accusers, who have not been named, one said she was sexually assaulted during a relationship with him when she was 16. Another woman claims Brand raped her in Los Angeles in 2012.
The 48-year-old comedian denied all allegations, saying in a video statement that his relationships were “always consensual.”
THE Times said Monday that other women had contacted the newspaper with allegations against Brand and that they would be “rigorously vetted.”
Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, who chairs the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, urged British and US police to investigate the “incredibly shocking” allegations.
“This deserves and requires a criminal investigation, because for too long we have seen men – and the perpetrators of these kinds of crimes are almost invariably men – not being held accountable for their behavior and their actions,” he said. -she argued on BBC radio.
London’s Metropolitan Police said it would speak to the Sunday Times and Channel 4 to ensure “all victims of crime they spoke to know how they can report any criminal allegations to the police”.
The allegations reported by newspapers and Channel 4 cover the period between 2006 and 2013, when Brand was a major star in the UK, with increasing visibility in the US.
Known for his numbers stand-up unbridled, he hosted radio and television shows, wrote a memoir chronicling his battles with drugs and alcohol, appeared in several Hollywood films and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry between 2010 and 2012.
In 2008, Brand was suspended by the BBC for making obscene calls to the actor. Fawlty Towers, Andrew Sachs, in which he bragged about having had sex with his granddaughter. He quit his radio show following the incident, which sparked thousands of complaints to the state-funded channel.
In recent years, Russell Brand has largely disappeared from mainstream media, but has built a large online audience with videos mixing wellness and conspiracy theories. His YouTube channel, which has more than 6 million subscribers, has spread COVID-19 conspiracies, vaccine misinformation and interviews with right-wing hosts including Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan.