Comedian Nish Kumar says presence of sexual predators in industry is ‘open secret’ following Russell Brand allegations
Nish Kumar says young women have been advised to steer clear of dressing rooms used by ‘predators’ still working on the comedy scene.
The comedian also said the knowledge of Russell Brand‘s alleged abuse against young women was “a well-known open secret on the comedy circuit” and he thinks it’s likely “there’s more allegations to come”.
Russell Brand
Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault and abuse and sexual misconduct by a number of women – claims he vehemently denies.
Speaking on his Pod Save The UK podcast, Kumar said: “This stuff is still happening, there are still people working in comedy who are the subject of open secrets.
“There are still people who work in comedy that we can’t name because again, of the threat of lawsuits. And there are still people working in comedy who people will say, ‘Oh, we don’t send young women into their dressing room’.”
The 38-year-old added: “Now at that stage for me, you should be sacked from that job. If you can’t have someone be around young women, they have no place in any kind of workplace.
“The tolerance of it is something that we are going to have to actually have a reckoning with.”
Kumar, who previously hosted The Mash Report and Late Night Mash – said he first heard about Brand’s alleged wrongdoings in mid-2017, and that “from that point onwards it was well known”.
He said it went on to be discussed by multiple comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018.
However, he said the “very specific and serious allegation” against Brand that he had first been made aware of was not one that was discussed in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme which aired at the weekend.
For that reason, Kumar said he thinks “it is possible that there’s more allegations to come”.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
Pointing to Brand’s diminishing TV work in the UK after 2019, Kumar said: “That’s simply because increasingly people were just not willing to work with him. Everyone was afraid to talk about it because of the threat of lawsuits, you know?
“And so, the only power people had was to withdraw participation from shows involving Russell Brand.”
Abuse of power is an industry wide problem
He said as a comedian working in the industry, he too felt a sense of “guilt” and “complicity”.
Kumar said: “Watching it as a cisgendered, heterosexual male comedian, you feel a certain sense of guilt and a certain sense of complicity because you’ve been working with production companies and producers who are providing an infrastructure that allows predators to thrive.”
He said the “indulgence” of top talent was “an issue that cuts across all of the industries,” and which needed to be addressed.
Kumar concluded: “The only people to come out of this with anything approaching any credibility are the victims who have been brave enough to step forward and the journalists who have worked extremely hard to produce rigorous pieces of journalism so that they could get around the threats of a very powerful man’s lawyers.”
Read more:
The allegations in full
Stars’ past warnings resurface
From drug addict to controversial comedy star
Brand, 48, was initially accused of rape, sexual assault and abuse by four women with the alleged offences taking place between 2006 and 2013.
The comedian and presenter denies the claims, and says all his relationships have been consensual.
Following the report by the Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches, two further women have come forward with allegations against Brand.
The Metropolitan Police says it has received an allegation of sexual assault against him dating back to 2003.
The BBC also says it is looking into allegations by a woman who claims Brand exposed himself to her and then laughed about it afterwards on his Radio 2 show.
In the wake of the claims, numerous companies have cut ties with Brand including his management company, a women’s charity and several of his YouTube sponsors.
Sky News has approached Russell Brand for comment.
Taylor Swift has announced she is getting married to her NFL star boyfriend Travis Kelce.
The pop star and Kansas City Chiefs tight end shared the news in a joint post on Instagram, with the caption: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
The announcement was liked more than 1.7 million times just over 30 minutes after it was posted.
Pic: Instagram / @taylorswift
Swift and Kelce started their relationship in July 2023, after the three-time Super Bowl winner said on his podcast New Heights that he tried and failed to meet the singer at her Eras Tour concert in Kansas City.
Rumours grew that the couple were dating after Swift was spotted at a number of Chiefs games. On her seventh time in the stands, she brought her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, along.
Kelce told the Wall Street Journal in November 2023: “There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: ‘Yo! Did you know he was coming [to the Eras Tour]?’
“I had somebody playing Cupid… She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
From January: Taylor cheers on Travis after Chiefs win
Earlier this month, Swift appeared on Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, and announced her 12th album, titled The Life Of A Showgirl.
Speaking to her now-fiance and his brother Jason Kelce, Swift said it was inspired by the Eras Tour – and also talked about Travis’s attempt at meeting her two years ago.
While she said his plan to give her his number on a friendship bracelet was a “wild, romantic gesture,” she joked he “didn’t do any proper logistical planning” and thought he would be allowed backstage.
“Because he knows the elevator lady, he thought he could talk to her about just getting down to my dressing room,” she added. “That’s how it works in 1973.”
Read more about Taylor Swift:
Swift’s final London show was the ‘best’
The impact of the ‘excruciating’ Era’s tour
Her new chart record
The new album, which will be released on 3 October, marks her first release since she took back control over her entire back catalogue from private equity firm Shamrock Capital.
Sky News culture and entertainment reporter Gemma Peplow said after her globe-trotting tour and a swathe of re-releases over recent years, the new album cemented Swift’s reputation “as the hardest-working star in pop”.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Despite rumours he would retire after losing this year’s Super Bowl, Kelce will play for the Kansas City Chiefs again this season.
He told GQ magazine his on-field performances “slipped a little bit” as he started acting, and added: “I’m just saying that my work ethic is such that I have so much pride in how I do things that I never want the product to tail off, and I feel like these past two years haven’t been to my standard.”
Entertainment
Boy, 16, convicted in Germany over supporting failed terror plot at Taylor Swift concert
A 16-year-old has been convicted in Germany for supporting a foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Austria last year.
The teenager, named Mohammad A, who cannot be fully identified under Germany’s privacy laws, was convicted of preparing a serious act of violence and supporting a terrorist act of violence abroad.
He was handed a suspended 18-month sentence on Tuesday. According to the court, he made a “comprehensive confession” at his trial, which was held behind closed doors because of his age.
German judges found that the defendant, a Syrian national then aged 14, supported the ideology of the Islamic State group at the time.
The court heard he was also in contact via social media with a young man in Austria who planned to attack a Swift concert in Vienna, had sent him a video with bomb-building instructions, and organised contact with an IS member.
All three of Swift’s concerts at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium were cancelled in August last year after a terror plot was uncovered by authorities.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Swiftie on cancelled Vienna show
Concert organisers had expected up to 65,000 fans inside the stadium at each concert and as many as 30,000 onlookers outside.
Authorities said the main suspect, now 20, planned to target those outside of the stadium and hoped to “kill as many people as possible”.
Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the directorate of state security and intelligence, added at the time that the suspect was “clearly radicalised in the direction of the Islamic State and thinks it is right to kill infidels”.
Read more from Sky News:
‘Headphone dodgers’ targeted by new TfL campaign
Impact of new online safety rules revealed
Two victims of Isle of Wight helicopter crash named
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Swift later called the decision to cancel her shows in Austria “devastating,” and said: “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.
“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024