The News-Times

BBC gets more complaints about Russell Brand

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LONDON — 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 and 2013, at the height of his fame.

Brand, 48, has denied the allegation­s. The comedian worked as a BBC radio presenter from 2006 to 2008. The broadcaste­r said it recorded a total of 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 further 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.”

The claims against Brand, published in September by The Times and Sunday Times newspapers and in a Channel 4 documentar­y, include allegation­s that Brand sexually assaulted one woman during a relationsh­ip with him when she was 16. Another woman says Brand raped her in Los Angeles in 2012. The accusers have not been named.

Referring to allegation­s from one of the women that Brand used BBC cars to drive her from school to his home when she was 16, the broadcaste­r said it no longer had its records of car bookings from the time.

It said investigat­ions are ongoing.

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