NEW ALLEGATIONS

Two New Complaints About Russell Brand Revealed in BBC Probe

The broadcaster says it has received a total of five complaints about Brand’s behavior.

Two more people have come forward to make complaints to the BBC about Russell Brand since the British broadcaster began an investigation into his behavior, the corporation said Tuesday.

The new complaints into Brand’s conduct between 2006 and 2008 when he hosted radio shows were made to the BBC in the last two months, the British broadcaster said. The revelation came as part of an update into the BBC’s review of Brand’s behavior that launched in September after the comedian was accused of rape and sexual assaults in a joint investigation by U.K. media outlets.

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According to the BBC, the new complaints are “understood to relate to his workplace conduct, and are not of a serious sexual nature.” The corporation said it had now received a total of five complaints—three of which were made before Brand was accused in September of sexual wrongdoing by the Times, Sunday Times, and Channel 4’s Dispatches. Brand has denied the allegations.

One of the complaints was first made in 2019 and relates to an incident that allegedly unfolded in 2008 on a BBC premises in Los Angeles. An earlier report on the incident said a woman had claimed that Brand exposed himself to her and was then recorded laughing minutes later on his BBC radio show about what had happened.

Two older complaints were made to the BBC during Brand’s time working on the corporation’s radio stations in 2006 and 2008.

Peter Johnston, the BBC’s director of editorial complaints and reviews, said that while the review is still ongoing, “it would appear that no disciplinary action was taken against Russell Brand during his engagement with the BBC in 2006-8 prior to his departure from the BBC.”

Among the allegations in the September reporting about Brand’s conduct was the claim that the actor used the BBC’s car service to pick up a 16-year-old girl from her school and take her to his home. (She accused Brand of grooming her and sexually assaulting her as a teenager.)

“Due to the passage of time the BBC’s records of car bookings are no longer available,” Johnston wrote in his update of the BBC’s internal review. “This means that we have not been able to identify the precise details of this or any records or details of specific journeys or bookings made for Russell Brand.”

In addition to the BBC’s review, another review is underway at Channel 4, where Brand once worked as a presenter, and British police are investigating the allegations against him. Earlier this month, a lawsuit filed in New York alleged that Brand exposed himself to a woman on the set of the movie Arthur before sexually assaulting her in a bathroom.

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