russell brand #004

Rusty's radio show, with BBC 6 Music, co-host Karl Pilkington!

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Brand's radio career began in early 2002, when he hosted a Sunday afternoon show with Matt Morgan on London's Indie Rock station Xfm. Brand was fired from the job after reading pornographic material live on-air. In 2005, Brand co-hosted three one-off shows on BBC Radio 6 Music with Karl Pilkington. Brand then co-hosted The Russell Brand Show beginning in April 2006 on BBC Radio 6 Music. In November 2006, the show transferred to BBC Radio 2 and aired on Saturdays from 9–11 pm. The show regularly drew about 400,000 listeners. In an episode of the show broadcast on 18 October 2008, Brand and fellow Radio 2 DJ Jonathan Ross made a series of phone calls to actor Andrew Sachs in which Brand alleged on air that he had had sex with Sachs' granddaughter. Sunday tabloid The Mail on Sunday broke the story and regarded the phone calls as obscene. Both presenters were later suspended by the BBC because of the incident, and Brand resigned from his show. The BBC was later fined £150,000 by Ofcom, Britain's broadcast regulator, for airing the calls.

Brand returned to radio when he and Noel Gallagher hosted a one-off football talk show on 19 April 2009 for Talksport. Brand returned to Talksport on 9 October 2010, with a Saturday night show that lasted 20 weeks. The show featured clips and back-stage recordings from his Booky Wook 2 promotional tour. Brand was joined by a host of guests, including Noel Gallagher and Jonathan Ross.

After beginning his career as a comedian and later becoming an MTV presenter, in 2004 Brand gained a role as the host of Big Brother's Big Mouth, a Big Brother spin-off. In 2007, he had his first major film role in St Trinian's, and the following year he landed a major role in the romantic comedy-drama Forgetting Sarah Marshall; the film led to him starring in a spin off, the rock comedy Get Him to the Greek, alongside Jonah Hill in 2010. He also worked as a voice actor in the animated films Despicable Me in 2010, Hop in 2011, and Despicable Me 2 in 2013, and played the title character of the 2011 remake of the romantic comedy Arthur. In 2013, he released the successful stand-up special Messiah Complex.

Since guest-editing an edition of British political weekly New Statesman in 2013, Brand has become known as a public activist and campaigner, and has spoken on a wide range of political and cultural issues, including wealth inequality, addiction, corporate capitalism, climate change, and media bias. In 2014, Brand launched his political-comedy web series The Trews, released a book entitled Revolution, and began work on a documentary about financial inequality with Michael Winterbottom.

Over the course of his career, Brand has been the subject of frequent media coverage and controversy for issues such as his promiscuity, drug use and political views, his outrageous behaviour at various award ceremonies, his dismissal from MTV and resignation from the BBC, and his two-year marriage to American singer Katy Perry. He has incorporated many of his controversial public acts into his comedic material. A biographical documentary called Brand: A Second Coming was released in 2015.