The Paramount+ streaming service has removed Russell Brand’s 2009 comedy special from its platform in the latest act of corporate censorship against the politically inconvenient British star, who is facing allegations of rape and other forms of sexual misconduct.
Paramount’s decision to pull Russell Brand Live from New York comes as its streaming service continues to offer several Harvey Weinstein movies as well as a Roman Polanski film.
Both Weinstein and Polanski are sex offenders — the former was convicted, the latter pleaded guilty. Meanwhile, the Brand accusations thus far remain unsubstantiated allegations in the eyes of the law.
Paramount appears to have removed the Brand comedy special on Tuesday. The studio’s decision follows similar acts of censorship by YouTube and the BBC.
Google-owned YouTube has demonetized Brand’s account, claiming such decisions are made when “a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users.”
Meanwhile, BBC has removed some content featuring Russell from its streaming platform iPlayer and BBC Sounds, saying it”assessed that it now falls below public expectations.”
In recent years, Brand has emerged as a threat to the mainstream establishment media as well as Democrats with his enormous social media presence, which he leveraged to question left-wing orthodoxies including the war in Ukraine, big tech censorship, COVID, and the Biden administration.
He made many enemies among media executives by interviewing Tucker Carlson and even Oliver Stone, the latter of whom admitted that voting for Biden in 2020 was a “mistake.”
Paramount+ continues to stream several movies that were produced and distributed by Harvey Weinstein. They currently include the Oscar-bait Miramax releases Chocolat and The Cider House Rules, as well as the Dimension releases Scream and Spy Kids.
The studio acquired a stake in the old Miramax in 2020, giving it access to numerous movies produced and nurtured by the Weinstein brothers.
The platform is also streaming Polanski’s classic Chinatown, which is a Paramount release.