Spotify says it has NO plans to remove Russell Brand’s content after BBC and C4 removed all trace of him from their streaming services with episodes of QI, Bake Off and Joe Wicks’ podcast axed

YouTube said in a statement: ‘If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand.’

Other channels associated with his main YouTube page include Football Is Nice, which has some 20,000 subscribers, Awakening With Russell, which has 426,000 subscribers, and Stay Free With Russell Brand, which has 22,200 subscribers.

Advertisers pay YouTube to show their adverts before, during or after videos that are posted on the platform. Most YouTube content creators will not get a say in what ads are served. 

The advertising revenue is then split between the platform, owned by YouTube, and whoever made the video. Each receives around half. 

The news comes after the remaining shows of Brand’s Bipolarisation tour were postponed and the Metropolitan Police said they had received a report of an alleged sexual assault in the wake of media allegations about the comedian and actor. 

Brand ‘absolutely denies’ the allegations and insists all his relationships have been consensual.

Brand’s PR firm MBC PR and talent agent Tavistock Wood no longer advertise him as a client, and his publisher Bluebird, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, has suspended their relationship. 

And Netflix has now been urged to remove his comedy special, Re:Birth, from its catalogue. 

Brand still has a presence on video platform Rumble, where his channel has 1.4million followers and he hosts a weekly live show at 5pm BST, but there was no new episode on Monday.

His most recent video on Rumble is the short clip from Friday when he denied the allegations against him which were published the following day.

The Rumble channel description reads: ‘Everybody knows that the old ideas won’t help us. Religion is dead. Capitalism is dead. Communism is dead. Where will the answers of the next century lie? Particularly, when we’re facing a mental health epidemic and ecological meltdown.’   

Critics claim Brand has ‘set up a cult’ online to back him since the birth of the Me Too movement in 2017 by giving a platform to conspiracy theories including the idea that the pandemic, the Ukraine war and climate change distract from the activities of the global elite.

He also has 11million followers on Twitter, four million fans on Instagram and a hugely popular podcast with a lucrative ‘Stay Free’ merchandise range. While no longer being able to make money on YouTube will be a blow to Brand, 48, it will do little to dent his overall net worth – which has been estimated to be as high as £40million.

He remains on Locals, an online community platform where members can pay a minimum of £48 a year for bonus content. 

His Instagram has a link to a merchandise store, which leads to a webpage saying the site it currently under review. Meanwhile, his personal website is still selling tickets to a wellness festival scheduled for next summer, hosted by him and his wife. Laura Gallacher. 

Some weekend tickets costing between £160 and £195 each have sold out.  

Brand’s personal company which he earns with his wife – Pablo Diablo’s Legitimate Business Firm Ltd – saw its net assets more than double from £2m to £4.1m in 2021, according to Companies House filings. 

The comic has received support online from the likes of Andrew Tate and Elon Musk and his fans were out in force at a gig in Wembley on Saturday to show their backing.

Far-right radio host Alex Jones, who owes $1.5billion in damages to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, said: ‘The matrix is coming after Russell Brand, anybody that challenges the globalists, anybody that challenges Big Pharma, anybody that’s popular, that comes out against the establishment… is going to be accused of assaulting women. Now, because he comes out against the New World Order, suddenly the allegations are happening to him’.

One fan said after allegations he abused women: ‘Somewhere along the way Russell Brand woke up and became a powerful dissenting voice who no longer served their agenda. No wonder they are desperate to destroy him’.

PR guru Mark Borkowski believes Brand has built a ‘cult following’ online who may be willing to back him despite the ‘horrendous’ accusations about his treatment of women.

Comedian Rosie Holt said: ‘I guess the lesson is kids, if sexual misconduct rumours have been swimming about you for ages, set up a cult on YouTube to support you when the allegations become public’. 

One American writer said: ‘Russell Brand has known this day was coming for him since October 2017. 

‘Since then, he’s strategically cultivated and groomed a new mentally-malleable cult following that distrusts both women and the media so he can continue getting high on his other drug of choice — the spotlight’.

The investigation by Channel 4, The Times and Sunday Times began four years ago. Around the same time he stepped back from much of his TV and movie work.

His net worth has been estimated between £15m and £40m – with YouTube experts claiming he makes $61,000-a-month from YouTube plus another $100k-a-month from merchandise and paid subscriptions to his podcast. 

He lives with his wife Laura Gallacher in their £3million riverside home in Henley, Oxfordshire. 

PR experts have said that this army of fans means that he will never be cancelled. 

Mark Borkowski believes that the comedian, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by multiple women, has declared war on the mainstream media.

He said: ‘The crimes he’s been accused of are horrendous, and are damaging for him and for the people who were looking after him at the time’. 

The PR guru said some of his fanbase will stay intact thanks to the ‘unfettered unregulated world of social media’ – and raises serious questions for the BBC and Channel 4.

He added that the comedian’s denial of the accusations was reminiscent of how Donald Trump deals with accusations of improper behaviour.

Mr Borkowski said: ‘I think there will be a profound amount of people who will stand by him. Normally with allegations like this your career would be over, but not in this case, which is interesting. 

‘He’s a great content generator. He didn’t get to the top of his profession because he’s mediocre. He has the power to bewitch his audience.

‘It throws up questions against someone who has been allowed a certain amount of power because of his talent and his meteoric rise. 

‘It questions Russell Brand but also those in governance in TV. There will be a lot of people looking at themselves this morning – those people in power today won’t be the same ones in power that presided over this.’

Brand has since been dropped by a women’s charity he was working with, while TV production companies and channels have launched probes into his alleged behaviour. 

Mr Borkowski added: ‘There’s a question whether he’s going to face police action, but the question at the moment is of social media – the man isn’t going to get a fair trial when the police have the evidence to prosecute him.

‘More people may come forward, other people might see an opportunity. It’s a very complex case, mixed between old media and social media’.

The Times reports several other women have since come forward with fresh claims about Brand.

One woman, using the fake name Lisa, told the paper the comedian had sung about the Soham killer Ian Huntley during a consensual sexual encounter in 2008.

She said: ‘He started talking about Ian Huntley, the paedophile and child killer, and mentioned it quite a few times, like in a joking way, but also made up a whole song about it.

‘I just couldn’t understand why you would be able to have sex and talk about a child killer at the same time.’

Another woman, known as Esme, told the Times Brand had been threatening and verbally abusive towards her when she refused to have sex with him.

In a now deleted YouTube video, Brand can be heard joking about raping a woman during a recording of Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast in 2013.

Before the first allegations were published, Brand posted a video on Friday saying he has been ‘promiscuous’ but that all of his relationships have been ‘consensual’.

The BBC, Channel 4 and Banijay UK, which bought Endemol, the company commissioned by Channel 4 to produce the Big Brother spin-off shows Brand hosted, have all launched investigations into his behaviour while he was working on their programmes.

Downing Street urged the broadcasters to set out the results of their investigations into Brand ‘transparently’.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman called the allegations ‘very serious and concerning’.

Channel 4 announced it has removed content featuring Brand from its streaming service while it looks into the claims and will remind production companies of its code of conduct.

It comes after Brand was accused of pursuing audience members for sex while presenting Big Brother spin-off shows EFourum and Big Brother’s Big Mouth on Channel 4.

Banijay UK, which bought Endemol in 2020, said it has launched an ‘urgent internal investigation’ and encouraged ‘anybody who feels that they were affected by Brand’s behaviour’ to come forward.

The BBC is facing questions after one of the women, who was 16 when she claims Brand began a relationship with her, alleged he used the corporation’s car service to pick her up from school to take her to his home.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday, the woman, known as Alice, said Brand’s denial was ‘laughable’ and ‘insulting’.

In 2020, the same woman contacted Brand’s literary agent at the time, who was also the co-founder of talent agency Tavistock Wood.

A spokesman for the agency said Brand ‘categorically and vehemently denied the allegations’ at the time but they now believe they were ‘horribly misled’ and have terminated all professional ties with the comedian.

Yesterday a former model claimed Brand stalked her through streets in London demanding sex after they met in a bar, forcing her to run away from him in fear.

Revealing the distressing incident that took place in 2005, the woman – who remains anonymous – alleged that Brand followed five paces behind her for what ‘felt like a lifetime’ and shouted to her: ‘Let’s just f*** right here’.

The woman, who was in her 20s at the time, said she met Brand at a bar in Primrose Hill in London. She told of how despite telling him not to leave with her, Brand followed her into the street and became ‘creepy’.

‘It felt like he was hunting me down. It wasn’t flirty or fun. The word ‘predator’ is absolutely spot-on. 

‘He was dead set on his goal. His intention was to have sex with someone, anyone,’ she told The Sun.

As Dispatches aired on Saturday Brand performed a sold out comedy gig at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre in north-west London as part of his Bipolarisation tour.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said they do not have an open investigation into Brand, and another confirmed there have been no arrests following two allegations concerning claims that are said to have happened in the US.

The Met police said: ‘On Sunday September 17, the Met received a report of a sexual assault which was alleged to have taken place in Soho in central London in 2003.

‘Officers are in contact with the woman and will be providing her with support.

‘We first spoke with The Sunday Times on Saturday September 16 and have since made further approaches to The Sunday Times and Channel 4 to ensure that anyone who believes they have been the victim of a sexual offence is aware of how to report this to the police.’

The woman who has reported the alleged sexual assault had not spoken to The Sunday Times.