Actor-comedian Russell Brand sued in UK over alleged sexual abuse

Russell Brand appears onstage at the MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP / Matt Sayles)

LONDON - British actor-comedian Russell Brand is being sued over sexual abuse allegations in the first known lawsuit brought against him in Britain, after several women accused him of sexual assaults and inappropriate behaviour.

Brand, 49, was sued at London’s High Court on February 6, according to court records. No further details of the lawsuit are available.

The claimant’s lawyers declined to comment. Representatives for Brand did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brand, who has separately been sued in the United States, has previously stated that he had never had non-consensual sex.

The London litigation comes after the Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV’s documentary show “Dispatches” reported in 2023 that four women had accused Brand of sexual assaults, including a rape, between 2006 and 2013.

Police later said that, since those allegations were published and broadcast, they had received a report of an assault alleged to have taken place in London in 2003.

Brand, the former husband of U.S. pop singer Katy Perry and once one of Britain’s most high-profile comedians and broadcasters, had repositioned himself in recent years as an internet social commentator.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; additional reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Mark Heinrich)