Russell Brand has postponed several U.K. tour dates after a joint investigation unearthed multiple allegations of sexual assault against the actor and comedian.
According to The Independent, Brand was set to perform two shows this week and one next week as part of his “Bipolarisation” tour, but a statement from the promoters today said that he’d be postponing the remainder of the tour: "We don’t like doing it — but we know you’ll understand," the statement said.
Over the weekend, a joint investigation by the Times of London, The Sunday Times, and Channel 4 Dispatches outlined allegations from four women who said Brand sexually assaulted them, including one case of alleged rape. One woman told the publications that she had a three-month relationship with Brand while she was 16 and he was 31, and alleged that Brand forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Another woman accused Brand of raping her in her Los Angeles home in 2012. The incidents reported allegedly took place between 2006 and 2013.
Brand did, however, give a performance just hours after the publication of the investigation at Wembley Park on Saturday, appearing before about 2,000 attendees, according to The Independent.
For his part, Brand denied the allegations before the report came out in a video on his YouTube channel on Friday, calling all of his sexual encounters “completely consensual.”
“Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute,” he said in the video.
The BBC and Banijay U.K., who employed Brand during the period in question, have launched an investigation into the claims, per a statement provided to Variety, and the Metropolitan police have encouraged victims to come forward.
Thumbnail credit: Lester Cohen/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
