X and Tesla boss Elon Musk has given his support to Russell Brand as he battles allegations of sexual misconduct.
Brand, 48, has been accused of a multitude of crimes including physical abuse, sexual assault and rape. The comedian strongly denies the “very serious and criminal allegations” made against him.
But in a new interview with right-wing media campaigner Ben Shapiro, new X boss Elon gave his support to Brand, leaping to his defence. He added that for mainstream media, “it’s witching season”.
READ MORE: Cops investigating ‘number of sex offence allegations’ after Russell Brand reports
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Shapiro was speaking to Musk on a X Space on Thursday (September 29) regarding religion and the freedom of speech. It was during this chat that conservative proponent Shapiro brought the subject of Russell into the conversation.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The pair discussed how Brand has had his content demonetised by YouTube – in an effort to de-platform him. But Musk said people should be proceeding with caution and not to make any false accusations.
“There needs to be, obviously, a conviction here. It can’t be guilty until proven innocent,” Musk said. “Because obviously we’re just sort of in the witch burning phase here; just being declared a witch is enough to make you a witch and be burnt.”
Elon added that “anyone could be accused at any time of false charges, and we can’t be destroying their lives on the potential of false accusations”. He also believed that the action taken against Brand was down to his “rattling the cage” of the mainstream media.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
He said: “Seems like an odd coincidence that it’s happening when Russell is really gaining traction, questioning a lot of the conventional wisdom. I think we’re running out of conspiracy theories that didn’t turn out to be true”.
Musk has himself been accused of spreading several conspiracy theories. He also has leaned heavily into right-wing media and politics, opting to remove former US president Donald Trump’s ban from Twitter when he took over the platform.
Brand has since left Youtube behind as he begins to migrate his content to other video-sharing platform Rumble. However, in the wake of the allegations, many of Russell’s previous advertisers have dropped the channel.
Despite his dwindling financial sources, he maintains a strong viewership, with his Rumble channel already amassing 1.6 million followers. The platform has been criticised for not removing – and at other times actively promoting – potentially harmful content, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
(Image: Rumble)
Russell Brand continues to vehemently deny the allegations made against him in the explosive documentary made by Channel 4 and The Times. Ahead of the programme airing, Brand posted a video in which he insisted all the relationships he had were consensual.
He said in a video statement: “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. It’s worth mentioning there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives these two mainstream outlets are trying to construct, apparently in what seems to me to be a co-ordinated attack. I don’t want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations but I feel like I’m being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together.”
A police investigation remains underway as the Met Police look into historic allegations of sexual abuse and assault.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
