Who is Russell Brand? Life as comic, actor, radio presenter and activist

Russell Brand has hit the headlines after posting a video online denying unspecified allegations.

Mr Brand, 48, posted the video on his YouTube and social media accounts on Friday (September 15), saying he received the letters from a 'mainstream media TV company' and a newspaper, which he said included a 'litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks'.

"Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute,” he said. “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 have written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous."

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"Now, during that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I am being transparent about it now as well.

"To see that transparency metastasised into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question is there another agenda at play." Mr Brand said he believes he is a part of a 'co-ordinated attack' and said he is going to look into the matter because it is 'very, very serious'.

The comedian is known for hosting a series of TV shows in the UK, and for being married to American pop sensation Katy perry from 2010 to 2012. He is married to Laura Gallacher.

After breaking through on MTV in the early 2000s, Mr Brand became a household name for hosting Big Brother’s Big Mouth, a spin-off of the reality TV show, in 2004. His career then went from strength-to-strength,