Divisive comic’s profession has typically pushed the boundaries
R
ussell Brand has at all times been a divisive determine and on the centre of many controversies throughout his profession.
The comic rose to fame along with his stand-up performances, making his Edinburgh Festival debut in 2000 earlier than attaining prominence as host of Big Brother’s spin-off present Big Mouth from 2004 for 3 years.
However, in 2008, he and presenter Jonathan Ross had been on the centre of a furore after leaving a sequence of lewd messages throughout a prank on BBC Radio 2 on the answerphone of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, who died in 2016, a couple of romantic liaison along with his granddaughter.
The pre-recorded present triggered uproar, prompting Brand and the controller of Radio 2 to stop, Ross to be suspended from broadcasting for 3 months and a shake-up in the way in which BBC output was vetted.
Ofcom later fined the BBC £150,000 over the cellphone calls, describing them as “gratuitously offensive, humiliating and demeaning”.
During an interview for BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2013, Brand claimed the scandal, later named Sachsgate, had erupted as a result of he had change into caught up in an anti-BBC “agenda”.
He reiterated his apology for the upset the incident triggered, however recommended it was a “dishonest scandal” as a result of it was hijacked by these motivated by a bias towards the company.
It got here a 12 months after Brand launched his memoir titled My Booky Wook: A Memoir Of Sex, Drugs And Stand-Up which recounts his experiences of being a “promiscuous” lothario.
In the wake of the #MeToo motion, the actor and comic beforehand mentioned he had no regrets about his earlier sexual behaviour, claiming to have had intimate relationships with tons of of girls prior to now.
Brand’s profession within the US soared following the Sachsgate scandal, starring in quite a lot of main Hollywood movies together with Forgetting Sarah Marshall reverse Kristen Bell, and Get Him To The Greek with Jonah Hill, each by which he performs the identical anarchic British rock star Aldous Snow.
He additionally starred within the re-make of the Dudley Moore comedy Arthur alongside Dame Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner and Greta Gerwig, the boozy story of a wayward playboy.
During this time, Brand met US pop star Katy Perry on the MTV Video Music Awards in September 2009 and after having fun with a whirlwind romance, Brand proposed outdoors the Taj Mahal in India two months later.
The couple had been married at a lavish ceremony performed by a buddy of the bride’s household on the Aman-e-Khas luxurious resort outdoors the Ranthambore tiger sanctuary in India in October 2010.
Rumours of cracks of their relationship started to flow into when the pair had been pictured spending Christmas aside, and 14 months after the ceremony Brand introduced the couple had break up.
At the time, Brand mentioned: “Sadly, Katy and I are ending our marriage. I’ll always adore her and I know we’ll remain friends.”
In 2015, Brand hit the headlines as soon as once more for urging individuals to vote Labour after repeatedly saying they need to not vote.
He later mentioned in an interview with NME: “My opinion on voting is evolving,” whereas warning that “the end of democracy” may very well be close to.
Brand additionally sparked controversy on Comic Relief in 2017 by saying “f****** hell” stay on air following a technical glitch.
It got here in the identical 12 months that he launched his half private memoir and half self assist information titled Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions, following his rehabilitation from heroin dependancy in 2003.
Similarly in 2020, Brand divided opinion over a YouTube clip by which he discusses whether or not the video for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s single Wap is a “feminist masterpiece or porn”.
He has since garnered hundreds of thousands of followers on his YouTube channel overlaying news tales, together with alleged misinformation surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic and being a sceptic of the vaccine.
The star married Laura Gallacher, the sister of presenter Kirsty, in 2017 and the couple, who share Mabel and Peggy, predict their third little one.
On Friday, Brand posted a video on-line saying he “absolutely” denies unspecified legal allegations about his private life outlined in two “extremely disturbing letters”.
He mentioned he obtained the letters from a “mainstream media TV company” and a newspaper which he mentioned included a “litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks”.