Comedian Daniel Sloss has spoken up about serious allegations made against Russell Brand by a number of women.
After a joint investigation by The Times and Channel 4 show Dispatches, several women accused Brand of rape, sexual assault, and physical and emotional abuse.
Brand has issued a lengthy statement denying these allegations, and refutes all claims of criminal wrongdoing.
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In a film that was broadcast on Channel 4 tonight, Daniel Sloss was presented as the ‘only’ comedian who was approached that agreed to come forward to discuss Brand’s alleged actions.
The Scottish comedian agreed to speak on record, claiming to have heard abut Brand’s behaviour whilst working himself, and alleging that female comedians have established groups to discuss people within the industry to avoid, Brand being amongst those people.
On this evening’s Dispatches, it was claimed that journalists from the team had seen messages from a WhatsApp group that pertained to Brand.
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Speaking to The Times, Sloss said: "I know for many, many years that women have been warning each other about Russell."
The allegations made by those involved in this investigation relate to a period of great success in Brand’s career between 2006 and 2013.
During that time, crew members at Channel 4 have alleged that they felt like they were ‘taking lambs to slaughter’ after claiming Brand identified women in the audience of a Big Brother spin-off show that he would like to pursue for sex.
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The show also made a number of allegations relating to Brand’s demeanour at work, his attitude to women within his workplace, and more serious instances, including claims that he exposed himself to colleagues and suggested that they might want to perform oral sex on him.
Most of the women who allege that Brand raped or sexually assaulted them have asked to remain anonymous.
In his full denial of the allegations, Brand said: "I've received two extremely disturbing letters or 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.
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"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. As I've 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 metastasised into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play?
"Particularly when we've 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."
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He continued: "I'm aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while 'watch out, Russell. They're coming for you, you're 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's 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 being 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 narrative 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 wanna get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I'm being attacked and plainly they're working very closely together. We are obviously going to look into this matter 'cause it's very, very serious.
Topics: UK News, Celebrity, TV and Film, Russell Brand
Tom Wood