GB News presenter Beverley Turner has been blasted for welcoming Russell Brand on her show and calling him a ‘hero’ who is being ‘attacked’.
Allegations against the comedian and actor, 48, were revealed today, as he has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by four women, including one who claimed she was 16 years old at the time.
Brand, who released a video on Friday denying the ‘very serious allegations’, has been accused by the four alleged victims who claimed they were abused by Brand between 2006 and 2013.
In the video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Brand said he had been approached by a mainstream TV network and a mainstream newspaper with ‘extremely disturbing’ correspondence listing ‘a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks.’
Amid some ‘stupid stuff’ in the correspondence, including, he said, that he ‘shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives,’ were ‘some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.’
Presenter Turner, 49, hosts a weekday programme on GB News, titled Bev Turner Today.
She has now claimed Brand is being ‘attacked’, writing on X: ‘You are being attacked @rustyrockets.
‘Establishment media don’t know what to do with the fact that you have 6million subscribers & generate autonomous, knowing and original content. You are welcome on my @GBNEWS show anytime.
‘We are mainstream media. But we are not Establishment media. There’s a difference. Keep going. This proves you are winning. You’re a hero.’
Her comments, which were made before the allegations broke via The Times, have sparked outrage.
One person wrote: ‘This has aged well. Maybe read the investigation before throwing support behind this man, in a fruitless attempt to get a ratings bump. Rank amateurs, you lot.’
Another said: ‘Good God. You would do well to reflect on the seriousness of the situation.’
Someone else said: ‘I’m embarrassed for you.’
A fourth wrote: ‘Imagine coming to his defence before even hearing the evidence for yourself. That says a lot about you, Beverley, and it says nothing about anyone else. Disgusting.’
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The bombshell piece by The Times reveals four women making the allegations against Brand, with one saying the St Trinian’s actor raped her up against a wall at his home in Los Angeles and he later apologised over text after she told him: ‘When a girl say[s] no it means no.’
A second woman alleges that Brand assaulted her when she was 16 and at school, and he was 31.
She says she had to punch him in the stomach to make him stop after he ‘forced his penis down her throat’.
Another woman claims Brand ‘forced a finger inside of her’ after becoming angry when he found out she had spoken to an ex-boyfriend, and says that he forced her to brush her teeth so hard and make her gums bleed so she would taste ‘anonymous’ to him.
In his video denying the allegations, Brand 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.
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‘As I’ve written about extensively in my book, I was very, very promiscuous. Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships that I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I’m being transparent about it now as well.
‘And to see that transparency metastasise into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question is there another agenda at play.’
He said there had been ‘coordinated media attacks’ in the past against people like controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, and that he himself had previously been labelled a conspiracy theorist.
Brand went on to claim media outlets had been trying to contact people he knows ‘for ages and ages,’ but ‘what I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.’
He claimed he had ‘witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack.’
Victim Support
Victim Support offers support to survivors of rape and sexual abuse. You can contact them on 0333 300 6389.
‘Now, I don’t want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I’m being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together.
‘We are obviously going to look into this matter because it’s very, very serious.’
Channel 4’s Dispatches special, Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, airs tonight at 9pm.
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