Russell Brand suspended from charity ambassador role after rape charges

Russell Brand has been suspended from his role as a charity ambassador after being charged with rape.

Days after the comedian and actor was charged with rape and sexual assault last week, it has been announced that he has been removed from his position as vice president of an animal hospital.

It emerged on Friday that the Metropolitan Police had been authorised to charge Brand with a number of offences following a "careful" review of the evidence.

The 49-year-old has been charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault. The allegations relate to four different women between 1999 and 2005.

Brand has denied all the charges.

Following the news, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall actor has now been removed from his role at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire, England "indefinitely".

In a statement to The Mirror, the animal hospital's CEO, Colin Stocker, said, "With the news of the extremely serious charges announced last week, our senior team met and immediately suspended Mr Brand from his ambassador role at Tiggywinkles, indefinitely."

Brand was appointed to the role after bringing in a fox cub in 2017.

In a video posted on X on Friday, the comedian insisted he had "never engaged in non-consensual activity".

"I've always told you guys that when I was young and single before I had my wife and family - who are there just out of shot - I was a fool, man, I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord," he claimed.

"I was a drug addict, a sex addict, and an imbecile but what I never was, was a rapist."

Brand is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 2 May.