Fearne Cotton 'unfollows' Russell Brand and deletes podcast chats from her site
Fearne Cotton's Instagram account is no longer following Russell Brand's profile following allegations of sexual abuse being made against the comedian, which he strongly denies.
The former Radio 1 DJ, 42, has previously interviewed Brand on her popular podcast Happy Place and the dad-of-two also appeared as a guest speaker at one of her wellness festivals in 2019, but episodes featuring Brand have disappeared from Fearne's podcast streams over recent days.
In an explosive Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, which was made in conjunction with The Times and Sunday Times and aired on Saturday night, Brand, 48, was accused of rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse - which the comedian vehemently denies.
Fearne, who is friends with Brand's pregnant wife Laura, hasn't yet spoken publicly regarding the allegations made against Brand. The mum-of-two, appeared on Brand’s Under The Skin podcast back in 2020, discussing her experiences with fame and mental health. The episode is still available to stream on platforms like Apple podcasts and Spotify.
Fearne Cotton's Instagram account is no longer following Russell Brand's profile (Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Fearne previously interviewed Brand on her popular podcast Happy Place (GC Images)In 2016, Fearne revealed she was supporting Brand's wife Laura and offering her advice ahead of Laura giving birth to her first child with the comic. Speaking to the Mirror at the Pride of Britain Awards, Fearne said: "She's my best mate.. we've been chatting a lot about motherhood, but she's super ready for it. She's really calm and such an amazing, amazing human being."
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Brand has been married to his wife Laura Gallacher for six years, but the couple's romance sparked long before then, having fallen for each other almost a decade prior. The couple, who are due to welcome their third child into the world soon, were an item in 2007 when art student Laura was 19 and Radio 2 presenter Russell was 30, after Laura's big sister, TV star Kirsty Gallacher, reportedly introduced them.
On Wednesday, bosses from Channel 4 and the BBC spoke at the Royal Television Society (RTS) Cambridge Convention 2023 amid the allegations made against Brand, which the comedian strongly denies. Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon has addressed the allegations levelled at Brand saying she found the claims "disgusting and saddening".
Ms Mahon spoke as she joined BBC director-general Tim Davie at the Royal Television Society (RTS) Cambridge Convention 2023 [September 20] in King’s College Cambridge. Speaking about the claims today, Ms Mahon said: "The allegations made against Russell Brand are horrendous and as a CEO of Channel 4 and as a woman in our industry, I found the behaviours described in Dispatches and The Sunday Times and The Times articles disgusting and saddening. The allegations of course need to be followed up further and we and the BBC and Banijay are busy investigating."
She added that her channel had invited anyone that knew about such behaviour to come to them directly as well as noting that they had set up a process for people to contact the broadcaster anonymously if they needed to. "They are not empty words or gestures from all of us, they are what is meant by our duty of care", she continued.
Ms Mahon added: "We will seek to find out who knew, who was told what and what was or wasn’t referred up. But what is clear to me is that terrible behaviour towards women was historically tolerated in our industry. And the clips as well provide a rather very shocking jolt when ones realises what appeared on air not that long ago."
Speaking to his social media followers via a video also shared on YouTube ahead of Dispatches airing on Saturday, Brand denied allegations made against him and said: "I’ve received two extremely disturbing letters, or a letter, and an email, one from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper, listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like, my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel, but amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
"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. 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’m being transparent about it now as well, and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question, is there another agenda at play?"
* If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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