Russell Brand has shut down his addiction and mental health charity, UK media revealed yesterday.
The Sun newspaper reports that the national Charity Commission was told back in September 2024 that the comedian turned online guru’s Stay Free Foundation “no longer operates,” and was removed from the official register of charities last month.
Brand founded the charity following his own recovery from heroin addiction in 2003. He was a frequent advocate for health services to provide more support for addicts, and in 2013 made a documentary about the subject for the BBC.
The move follows a 2023 investigation jointly between Channel 4’s Dispatches programme and The Sunday Times newspaper, in which four women accused him of sexual assault between 2006 and 2013. Brand denies all allegations against him, saying he is the victim of an establishment smear campaign. He recently moved to the US from his home in the UK.
Deadline previously reported that Brand co-hosted one of the BBC‘s flagship live television events just months after an employee re-filed a decade-old complaint about his conduct.
In March 2017, Brand was handed a presenting role on BBC Studios-produced telethon Comic Relief, during which he introduced new comedy acts in a bid to raise money for charity.
The Comic Relief booking came after a BBC employee decided in 2016 to re-raise a complaint they originally made in 2007 about Brand urinating in a cup in front of colleagues during the making of his Radio 2 show.
The revelation shows that the BBC missed repeated warnings about Brand’s behavior, that complaints were not confined to an isolated historical event, and that the issues were a matter of live concern given that the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star was still being hired as a presenter by the corporation. The BBC has apologized for mishandling the complaints.
