Paramount+ PULLS Russell Brand’s comedy special ‘Live in New York City’ from their streaming service – after he was accused of rape and sexual assault
- Paramount+ pulled Russell Brand’s 2009 comedy special ‘Live in New York City’
- Brand at the weekend was accused by four women of rape and sexual assault
- He has been dropped by a talent agency and blocked from monetizing YouTube
- Brand has denied the allegations and insisted that all relations were consensual
Paramount+ has removed Russell Brand’s 2009 comedy show ‘Live in New York City’ – following in the footsteps of YouTube and the BBC in cutting ties.
Brand, 48, was accused over the weekend by four women of rape and sexual assault, as well as extreme emotional abuse and manipulation.
He denies the allegations, insisting all his relationships were consensual, and claiming he is the victim of a ‘mainstream media plot’ to derail his YouTube career as a wellness guru. On Tuesday, however, Paramount+ took the show down.
The show has been taken down, and an error message in its place
Russell Brand’s 2009 comedy special was available on Paramount+ until Tuesday morning
YouTube, the video streaming service owned by Google , announced it had suspended ‘monetisation’ – or adverts – on Brand’s videos for ‘violating our Creator Responsibility policy’
His most recent stand-up special, ‘Russell Brand Re:Birth,’ remains available on Netflix. Netflix has not commented.
Paramount+’s move came after YouTube suspended lucrative adverts on his channel, he was dumped by his book publisher and agent, and discarded by charities.
The tour dates for his one-man stage show have been axed, he faces a police investigation and a probe by the Charity Commission.
His back-catalogue of comedy shows is being wiped from Channel 4’s streaming service and from iPlayer after BBC director general Tim Davie called them ‘completely unacceptable’, with the BBC declaring its former star’s material ‘falls below public expectations’.
Davie pledged a full review of Brand’s time at the corporation from 2006 to 2008, including the presenter’s alleged use of a BBC chauffeur to collect a 16-year-old schoolgirl from lessons for sex.
Brand is seen on Saturday leaving a gig in London – the last time he was seen in public
The BBC, where Brand was a host on Radio 2 and a guest on other channels, said the ‘limited content featuring Russell Brand on iPlayer and BBC Sounds’ had been removed ‘having assessed that it now falls below public expectations’.
Channel 4, where Brand burnished his name in the mainstream media fronting a Big Brother spin-off show in the 2000s, also erased his shows including a Celebrity Bake Off episode from its streaming service ‘while we look into this matter’.
Brand’s book publisher Bluebird, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, ‘paused all future publishing’ with him, while Comic Relief, where he took part in its BBC telethons, said ‘it would not be appropriate for us to work with Russell Brand’.
The Charity Commission is examining Brand’s role at his addiction foundation the Stay Free Foundation following the revelations.
Brand denies any criminal wrongdoing. More women are now coming forward to accuse Brand of sexual misconduct.
Among the latest accusations, a woman has alleged Brand taunted her about her looks and sang about the Soham killer Ian Huntley during sex.
‘Lisa’ told The Times of London she was invited to the comedian’s house in 2008, when she was in her early twenties, with a female friend of hers for a threesome, and because the two women’s real names sounded vaguely similar to ‘Holly and Jessica’,
Brand started making vile jokes about the ten-year-old girls who were murdered by Huntley in 2002.
Esme, another woman who spoke to The Times, said she told the comedian ‘no’ when he asked her back to his house about 15 years ago, and was shocked when his driver took them there anyway.
YouTube suspended lucrative adverts on his channel, he was dumped by his book publisher and agent, and discarded by charities. Pictured: On Comic Relief in 2017
Thought to be one of his main revenue streams, he has 6.6million subscribers to his YouTube channel, allowing him to earn an estimated £1million a year from the adverts shown whenever someone watches one of his videos
Thought to be one of his main revenue streams, he has 6.6million subscribers to his YouTube channel, allowing him to earn an estimated $1.2million a year from the adverts shown whenever someone watches one of his videos.
Sara McCorquodale, of social media analysis agency CORQ, estimated ‘he is most likely making $2,400 to $4,400 per video’, and he has been filming up to five each week. He may still be earning cash from merchandising and sponsorships.
And he is likely to be still earning fees from Rumble, a more Right-wing version of YouTube, where his almost-daily posts have a potential of earning up to $99,000 each.
But since the weekend when he was accused of rape and a string of sexual assaults in a Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, followed by an allegation from 2003 being investigated by the Metropolitan Police yesterday, his profile has gone into freefall.
The 48-year-old comic and ‘wellness’ guru strenuously denies all the claims and calls them a wild conspiracy by the ‘mainstream media’, saying all his relationships during his ‘time of promiscuity’ were fully consensual.
Source: Read Full Article
