YouTube says Russell Brand will no longer make money from the video streaming site after several women made allegations of sexual assault against the comedian-turned-influencer.
YouTube said monetisation of Brand’s account, which has 6.6 million subscribers, has been suspended “following serious allegations against the creator”.
“This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand,” the Google-owned video service said.
Other channels associated with Brand’s main YouTube page include Awakening With Russell (426,000 subscribers), Football Is Nice (about 20,000 subscribers) and Stay Free With Russell Brand (22,200 subscribers).
Brand still has a presence on Rumble, a video site popular with some conservatives and far-right groups, where his channel has 1.4 million followers.
Brand, 48, denies allegations of sexual assault made by four women in a Channel 4 television documentary and The Times and Sunday Times newspapers.
The accusers, who have not been named, include one who said she was sexually assaulted during a relationship with him when she was 16. Another woman says Brand raped her in Los Angeles in 2012.
The four allegations date from between 2006 and 2013. London’s Metropolitan Police said that since those claims were made public, it has received a report of a separate sexual assault dating from 2003.
Brand issued a video message on social media to deny the “very serious criminal allegations” hours before they were published on Saturday.
“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,” Brand said. “Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual.”
Promoters have postponed the remaining dates in a string of live gigs by Brand.
Known for his unbridled and risque standup routines, Brand was a major UK star in the early 2000s. He hosted shows on radio and television, wrote memoirs charting his battles with drugs and alcohol, appeared in several Hollywood movies and was married to pop star Katy Perry from 2010 to 2012.
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