Russell Brand's money-spinning empire crumbles

Russell Brand’s money-spinning empire crumbles as YouTube suspends lucrative adverts and he is dumped by his book publisher and agent

• YouTube suspended adverts on his channel – thought to be main revenue stream
• He has 6.6million subscribers allowing him to earn an estimated £1million a year 

Russell Brand’s money-spinning empire was crumbling fast yesterday as the number of women making abuse claims reached nine.

YouTube suspended lucrative adverts on his channel, he was dumped by his book publisher and agent, and discarded by charities.

The tour dates for his one-man stage show have been axed, he faces a police investigation and a probe by the Charity Commission.

His back-catalogue of comedy shows is being wiped from Channel 4’s streaming service and from iPlayer after BBC director general Tim Davie called them ‘completely unacceptable’, with the BBC declaring its former star’s material ‘falls below public expectations’.

Mr Davie pledged a full review of Brand’s time at the corporation from 2006 to 2008, including the presenter’s alleged use of a BBC chauffeur to collect a 16-year-old schoolgirl from lessons for sex.

Yesterday YouTube, the video streaming service owned by Google, announced it had suspended ‘monetisation’ – or adverts – on Brand’s videos for ‘violating our Creator Responsibility policy’.

Yesterday YouTube, the video streaming service owned by Google , announced it had suspended ‘monetisation’ – or adverts – on Brand’s videos for ‘violating our Creator Responsibility policy’

YouTube suspended lucrative adverts on his channel, he was dumped by his book publisher and agent, and discarded by charities. Pictured: On Comic Relief in 2017

His back-catalogue of comedy shows is being wiped from Channel 4 ’s streaming service and from iPlayer

Thought to be one of his main revenue streams, he has 6.6million subscribers to his YouTube channel, allowing him to earn an estimated £1million a year from the adverts shown whenever someone watches one of his videos

Thought to be one of his main revenue streams, he has 6.6million subscribers to his YouTube channel, allowing him to earn an estimated £1million a year from the adverts shown whenever someone watches one of his videos.

READ MORE:  EXCLUSIVE: Russell Brand’s friends DEFEND him in the wake of ‘shocking’ rape allegations – and insist wife Laura WILL stand by him: ‘He is vulgar and he is offensive but he is NOT a monster’ 

Sara McCorquodale, of social media analysis agency CORQ, estimated ‘he is most likely making £2,000 to £4,000 per video’, and he has been filming up to five each week. He may still be earning cash from merchandising and sponsorships.

And he is likely to be still earning fees from Rumble, a more Right-wing version of YouTube, where his almost-daily posts have a potential of earning up to £80,000 each.

Brand’s tasteless humour was once hailed as edgy among his worshippers, while his ‘youth’ appeal and political ramblings saw him feted by the likes of former Labour leader Ed Miliband.

But since the weekend when he was accused of rape and a string of sexual assaults in a Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, followed by an allegation from 2003 being investigated by the Metropolitan Police yesterday, his profile has gone into freefall.

The 48-year-old comic and ‘wellness’ guru strenuously denies all the claims and calls them a wild conspiracy by the ‘mainstream media’, saying all his relationships during his ‘time of promiscuity’ were fully consensual.

Among the latest accusations, a woman has alleged Brand taunted her about her looks and sang about the Soham killer Ian Huntley during sex. ‘Lisa’ told The Times she was invited to the comedian’s house in 2008, when she was in her early twenties, with a female friend of hers for a threesome, and because the two women’s real names sounded vaguely similar to ‘Holly and Jessica’, Brand started making vile jokes about the ten-year-old girls who were murdered by Huntley in 2002.

Brand’s tasteless humour was once hailed as edgy among his worshippers, while his ‘youth’ appeal and political ramblings saw him feted by the likes of former Labour leader Ed Miliband

But since the weekend when he was accused of rape and a string of sexual assaults in a Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, followed by an allegation from 2003 being investigated by the Metropolitan Police yesterday, his profile has gone into freefall

Esme, another woman who spoke to The Times, said she told the comedian ‘no’ when he asked her back to his house about 15 years ago, and was shocked when his driver took them there anyway.

The BBC, where Brand was a host on Radio 2 and a guest on other channels, said the ‘limited content featuring Russell Brand on iPlayer and BBC Sounds’ had been removed ‘having assessed that it now falls below public expectations’.

Channel 4, where Brand burnished his name in the mainstream media fronting a Big Brother spin-off show in the 2000s, also erased his shows including a Celebrity Bake Off episode from its streaming service ‘while we look into this matter’.

Brand’s book publisher Bluebird, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, ‘paused all future publishing’ with him, while Comic Relief, where he took part in its BBC telethons, said ‘it would not be appropriate for us to work with Russell Brand’.

The Charity Commission is examining Brand’s role at his addiction foundation the Stay Free Foundation following the revelations.

Brand denies any criminal wrongdoing.

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