Russell Brand has vehemently denied “very serious criminal allegations” about his personal life, in a video in which he does not specify what the claims are but insists his relationships have always been consensual. In a clip posted on YouTube and to his social media platforms, the actor and comedian said he had received communications from a “mainstream media TV company” and a newspaper “listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks” that he “absolutely refutes”. Brand said the allegations pertained to the period of his career when he was working “in the mainstream”. “As I have written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous” at that time, he told his 6.59m subscribers on Friday night. Brand continued: “Now during that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I am being transparent about it now as well. “To see that transparency metastasised into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question: is there another agenda at play?” Brand said the “very serious allegations” came amid “a litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks”, such as against his channel. Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, responded to Brand’s two-minute video, saying: “Of course. They don’t like competition.” Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist who is awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, which he denies, and who has claimed in the past that he has been attacked by the media, also appeared to defend Brand, tweeting “welcome to the club” to him. In his video, Brand decried “coordinated media attacks” in the past against figures such as the controversial podcast host Joe Rogan after he announced he was taking the deworming drug ivermectin to treat Covid-19 in 2021. Brand said he had been characterised as a conspiracy theorist for his perspectives. The host of the Stay Free with Russell Brand podcast has previously appeared to promote “natural immunity” over vaccines. He has also previously said he was open-minded about whether the 9/11 terror attacks were faked by the US government. While he has always been a contrarian, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall actor has drifted from being a mainstream comedian with leftwing views to something of a figurehead for the online alt-right in recent years. In July, he shared his platform with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has pushed far-right conspiracy theories and was fired from the channel in April. In 2008, Brand made headlines for his BBC Radio 2 prank, now known as Sachsgate, when he left a “lewd” voicemail for the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs – who died in 2016 – about his granddaughter. Brand was married to the US pop star Katy Perry from 2010 to 2012 and is now married to Laura Gallacher, the sister of the presenter Kirsty, and the couple have two children. On Saturday, Kirsty Gallacher reposted Brand’s video in her Instagram stories, along with a red heart emoji.