Russell Brand QUITS two of his lucrative businesses in the wake of growing rape and sex assault allegations
- Under-fire Brand, 48, suddenly quit two companies this morning amid scandal
Russell Brand today quit two of his businesses amidst growing allegations about his behaviour with women.
The under scrutiny YouTuber, 48, has been accused of rape and sexual abuse by four women, claims he denies.
This morning he suddenly left two of his business interests One Arm Bandit and Mayfair Film Partnership Limited.
It came as YouTube suspended monetisation of his account and videos he put up on the platform.
Brand’s abandoned companies appear to be connected to broadcasting and performing.
The first describes itself as a business to ‘Support activities to performing arts’ while the second is in ‘film processing’.
One Arm Bandit had previously counted one of Brand’s associates Matt Morgan among its officers as well as his former manager.
Brand, 48, suddenly left two of his business interests One Arm Bandit and Mayfair Film Partnership Limited
Russell Brand leaves the Troubabour Wembley Park theatre in north-west London on Saturday
It was set up in April 2007 and manager John Noel was named as an officer in October that year. Morgan and Brand joined in November that year.
How does YouTube monetisation work?
Advertisers pay YouTube to show their adverts before, during or after videos that are posted on the platform. Most YouTube content creators will not get a say in what ads are served.
The advertising revenue is then split between the platform, owned by YouTube, and whoever made the video. Each receives around half.
Tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker estimates Brand could have been making between $70,000 to $1million a year before YouTube decided to stop sharing revenue with him.
Advertisers generally pay based on a measure known as cost per mille (CPMs), meaning the cost of a thousand advert views. Certain types of content that are seen as less ‘ad safe’, such as the Ukraine war, generally attract lower CPMs than others.
Its last accounts show it had assets of £111,710, similar to its situation last year.
Mayfair Film Partnership Limited was set up in March 2009.
Mr Noel was appointed as a director in August that year and Brand joined the board in July 2010. Its last accounts showed £1.9million in assets.
Both businesses are still going and it is not clear what prompted the entertainer’s termination from them or who actioned it. Mr Noel is still a director of both of them.
Yesterday Mr Noel told Channel Four news he parted company with Brand in around 2014.
He said: ‘I’ve never had any complaints about him, other than turning up late. Yeah, that kind of thing. Standard stuff in our business.’
This morning the BBC removed shows featuring Brand from iPlayer, after YouTube suspended hits advertising revenue, his gigs were cancelled and he was dropped by his publisher.
An 2018 episode of QI featuring the comedian as a panellist and a Joe Wicks podcast about fame that featured him a guest in 2021 have been unavailable since Monday evening.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘The BBC does not ban or remove content when it is a matter of public record, unless we have justification for doing so.’
Today YouTube stopped him from being able to earn any money through his channel for ‘violating our Creator Responsibility policy’.
He produces around five videos a week for his 6.6million subscribers, earning him an estimated £1million a year.
Under the terms of his suspension Brand – whose net worth has been estimated between £15million and £40million – will still be allowed to post videos on the platform but will not receive any of the advertising revenue.
Today YouTube stopped Brand from being able to earn any money through his channel for ‘violating our Creator Responsibility policy’.
Shows featuring Russell Brand have been removed from BBC iPlayer. This includes a 2018 episode of QI
A Joe Wicks podcast about fame that featured him a guest in 2021 has been unavailable since Monday evening
YouTube said in a statement: ‘If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand.’
Other channels associated with his main YouTube page include Football Is Nice, which has some 20,000 subscribers, Awakening With Russell, which has 426,000 subscribers, and Stay Free With Russell Brand, which has 22,200 subscribers.
READ MORE – Did Russell Brand know this was all coming? Fellow comics and experts claim star spent four years ‘grooming’ online cult following ‘to support him when rape allegations become public’
Advertisers pay YouTube to show their adverts before, during or after videos that are posted on the platform. Most YouTube content creators will not get a say in what ads are served.
The advertising revenue is then split between the platform, owned by YouTube, and whoever made the video. Each receives around half.
On Saturday, The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches reported allegations of abusive and predatory behaviour including rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse said to have been committed by the presenter between 2006 and 2013.
The news comes after the remaining shows of Brand’s Bipolarisation tour were postponed and the Metropolitan Police said they had received a report of an alleged sexual assault in the wake of media allegations about the comedian and actor.
Brand ‘absolutely denies’ the allegations and insists all his relationships have been consensual.
The scandal has already seen Channel 4 remove all programmes linked to Brand on its website, including episodes of The Great British Bake Off and Big Brother’s Big Mouth in which he was featured. Brand’s PR firm MBC PR and talent agent Tavistock Wood no longer advertise him as a client, and his publisher Bluebird, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, has suspended their relationship.
And Netflix has now been urged to remove his comedy special, Re:Birth, from its catalogue.
Brand’s YouTube account has been suspended from YouTube’s Partner Programme ‘following serious allegations against the creator’, meaning his channel is no longer able to make money from advertising.
Brand has around six million subscribers on YouTube, which earn him an estimated £49,000 a month
The clips regularly touch on conspiracy theories, including the idea that the pandemic, the Ukraine war and climate change distract from the activities of the global elite
YouTube added that suspending a creator from the YouTube Partner Programme means they are ‘prohibited from using a new or alternate channel to circumvent our enforcement decision’.
Brand still has a presence on video platform Rumble, where his channel has 1.4million followers and he hosts a weekly live show at 5pm BST, but there was no new episode on Monday.
His most video on Rumble is the short clip from Friday when he denied the allegations against him which were published the following day.
The Rumble channel description reads: ‘Everybody knows that the old ideas won’t help us. Religion is dead. Capitalism is dead. Communism is dead. Where will the answers of the next century lie? Particularly, when we’re facing a mental health epidemic and ecological meltdown.’
Critics claim Brand has ‘set up a cult’ online to back him since the birth of the Me Too movement in 2017 by giving a platform to conspiracy theories including the idea that the pandemic, the Ukraine war and climate change distract from the activities of the global elite.
He also has 11million followers on Twitter, four million fans on Instagram and a hugely popular podcast with a lucrative ‘Stay Free’ merchandise range. While no longer being able to make money on YouTube will be a blow to Brand, 48, it will do little to dent his overall net worth – which has been estimated to be as high as £40million.
He remains on Locals, an online community platform where members can pay a minimum of £48 a year for bonus content.
His Instagram has a link to a merchandise store, which leads to a webpage saying the site it currently under review. Meanwhile, his personal website is still selling tickets to a wellness festival scheduled for next summer, hosted by him and his wife. Laura Gallacher.
Some weekend tickets costing between £160 and £195 each have sold out.
Brand’s personal company which he earns with his wife – Pablo Diablo’s Legitimate Business Firm Ltd – saw its net assets more than double from £2m to £4.1m in 2021, according to Companies House filings.
The comic has received support online from the likes of Andrew Tate and Elon Musk and his fans were out in force at a gig in Wembley on Saturday to show their backing.
Far-right radio host a Alex Jones, who owes $1.5billion in damages to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, said: ‘The matrix is coming after Russell Brand, anybody that challenges the globalists, anybody that challenges Big Pharma, anybody that’s popular, that comes out against the establishment… is going to be accused of assaulting women. Now, because he comes out against the New World Order, suddenly the allegations are happening to him’.
One fan said after allegations he abused women: ‘Somewhere along the way Russell Brand woke up and became a powerful dissenting voice who no longer served their agenda. No wonder they are desperate to destroy him’.
PR guru Mark Borkowski believes Brand has built a ‘cult following’ online who may be willing to back him despite the ‘horrendous’ accusations about his treatment of women.
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