YouTube has suspended ads on Russell Brand’s channel after the British comedian was accused of rape and sexual assault.
YouTube said its “monetisation” on Brand’s platform because he had violated the company’s “creator responsibility policy.” Brand denies criminal wrongdoing.
“If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” a YouTube spokesperson said.
Brand has 6.6M subscribers on YouTube and his videos regularly get millions of views. A recent interview with Tucker Carlson has been watched 2.5M times.
His content will remain on YouTube, but he will no longer be able to make money from videos, which lean heavily into popular internet conspiracies, including about Covid and UFOs.
YouTube’s intervention follows The Times, Sunday Times, and Channel 4 reporting allegations that Brand sexually assaulted four women at the height of his fame. Brand vehemently denies the claims and has said all of his relationships were consensual.
He has not commented since publishing a video across his social media channels in which he preemptively denied the “litany” of allegations about his criminal behavior.
“The relationships that I had were absolutely always consensual,” he said. “I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent. And I’m being transparent about it now.”