Names and faces
■ The BBC said Tuesday two more people have come forward to complain about Russell Brand since the broadcaster launched a review into the actor and comedian’s behavior. The BBC was giving an update to its investigation after British media outlets in September published claims by four women that they were sexually assaulted by Brand between 2006-13. Brand, 48, has denied the allegations. The comedian worked as a BBC radio presenter from 2006-08. The broadcaster said it recorded five complaints against Brand, including two people who raised complaints and concerns during the time Brand worked there and again after he left the corporation. Another person made a separate complaint after Brand’s departure, and two more people have come forward since the BBC launched its investigation in September. The broadcaster’s statement from Peter Johnston, its director of editorial complaints, did not specify the nature of the latest allegations. But its news website reported that they are “understood to relate to his workplace conduct, and are not of a serious sexual nature.” Brand has issued a statement saying his relationships were “always consensual.”
■ “Good Burger” star Kel Mitchell took to Instagram Monday to share a video message from his home, after a health scare landed him in the hospital last week. “I figured I need to show my face. … I’m good,” he said, before detailing his trip to the emergency room. Doctors eventually diagnosed him with a nerve issue from a prior injury, Mitchell said. The incident began, he said, while he was shopping, when “suddenly, the whole room started spinning.” Thinking he was just dehydrated, he started to eat and drink. But at that point, he said, “the whole right side of my arm and leg was numb, followed by not being able to swallow. That’s when I panicked,” he continued, adding that he “hobbled myself to the car” and drove himself to the hospital. At the emergency room, Mitchell said he failed the arm and leg test, which checks a patient’s blood flow within their limbs. He also said his basic motor skills weren’t functioning. “That was raising fears of like something was serious,” he said. Various scans to find the cause of his problems kept him at the hospital overnight. “It was actually a bulging disk that I had from a prior injury that was pressing up against a nerve that was mimicking all those symptoms I was going through,” Mitchell said.