BBC confirms it had five complaints about Russell Brand while he was Radio 2 DJ

The BBC has confirmed that a total of five complainants have come forward to the corporation since it launched a review into the behaviour of Russell Brand.

The broadcaster reports that two of these complainants came forward in the last two months and states that the complaints relate to Brand’s workplace conduct and are not of a serious sexual nature.

The other three complaints were made before the comedian was accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse in September. The 48-year-old denies all of the allegations.

Earlier this year, the Sunday Times, Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches aired an investigation after receiving allegations about the comedian’s behaviour in the early 2000s.

Four women alleged they were sexually assaulted by him during the height of his fame between 2006 and 2013. Brand has denied all allegations against him and said all his relationships were consensual.

He said in a pre-emptive video that he was “very, very promiscuous” but that he “refutes these very, very serious criminal allegations”.

Russell Brand’s statement in full:

In a lengthy statement made on YouTube, he 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.

“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, and 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 metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question, is there another agenda at play?

“Particularly when we’ve seen co-ordinated 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. 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”.

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