International Insider: Russell Brand Fallout; International Oscar Race Heats Up; Canada’s Digital News Fight
deadline.comWe’ve got the keys to the weekend, Insider fans. Jesse Whittock here guiding you through the international film and TV stories you need to read to top off the working week. Serious allegations: Jake and Max headed to the RTS Cambridge Convention this week, a bi-annual confab bringing together the great-and-the-good of the British TV industry to ruminate and speculate over the future of the sector.
But, as is so often the case, events got in the way. In the days leading up, Russell Brand was accused by four women of allegations ranging from rape to sexual assault via a bombshell joint investigation that has been nearly five years in the making from The Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4.
The entertainment world was rocked and the BBC, Channel 4 and Big Brother producer Banijay all reacted by launching investigations into historic allegations, while Brand, a one-time man-of-the-moment, comedian and Hollywood star, was dropped by his agent and book publisher and postponed his live tour, along with seeing ads suspended on his 6.6M-subscriber YouTube channel.
Another complaint emerged late Thursday after a woman told the BBC that Brand had exposed himself to her and then laughed about it minutes later on his BBC radio show in 2008.
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