Russell Brand’s UK comedy tour has been postponed.
The promoters of the embattled comedian’s “Bipolarisation” show made the announcement Monday following bombshell allegations that he had raped and abused multiple women.
“We are postponing these few remaining addiction charity fundraiser shows,” they said in a statement obtained by PvNew.
“We don’t like doing it — but we know you’ll understand.”
The first show to be affected is at the Theatre Royal Windsor, where Brand had been scheduled to perform Tuesday to a sold-out audience.
The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” star, who has been vocal about being in recovery, was also slated to appear at the Plymouth Pavilions on Friday and the Civic at The Halls Wolverhampton next Thursday.
Over the weekend, the Sunday Times published an exposé in which four anonymous women came forward to accuse Brand, 48, of rape, sexual assault, grooming and abuse.
The alleged incidents took place between 2006 and 2013.
One of the accusers claimed to have been raped “against a wall” in Brand’s Los Angeles home in July 2012, and another victim alleged that she began an “emotionally abusive and controlling” relationship with him when he was 31 and she was just 16 years old.
“I didn’t see the fun loving guy in front of me,” one woman, identified only as Nadia, wrote in a letter to Brand that she made public. “I saw a man who couldn’t control himself and the word NO is more of a challenge than a command.”
After the article was published, the women spoke out in a UK TV special.
Brand, who was married to Katy Perry from 2010 to 2012, vehemently denied the allegations in a video released prior to the claims coming to light.
“These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies, and as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous,” he said.
“Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about that then … and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question, is there another agenda at play?”
The tour postponement has not been the only fallout.
Brand’s publishing deal with Pan Macmillan imprint Bluebird was also suspended Monday.
In a statement to the Bookseller, a rep for Bluebird said, “These are very serious allegations, and in the light of them, Bluebird has taken the decision to pause all future publishing with Russell Brand.”
