Katherine Ryan talks about what it was like working with Russell Brand on the British version Roasted battle for Paramount’s Comedy Central.
During her Sky stand-up special, Katherine Ryan: firstborn daughter, the comedian recalled that she went into the show thinking she would make fun of him, “but in a fun way.”
Ryan said: “I got invited to a panel show and I was so excited to do it, but then I discovered that if I went ahead I would be sitting next to a man that I strongly believe in, but who can’t prove he’s ac***. And that’s the lawyer’s choice of words, not mine.”
“At first I turned down the job, and then I thought, well, he’s going to be there in his unnecessarily tight jeans, right? He’s going to be there, fingering Tucker Carlson or sucking off a Tibetan monk for views, whatever he’s doing now… I thought I was going to go on the show, and I made a moral decision,” she continued, noting that she decided to make fun of him.
Brand was “fine with it for a while, until he finally threw a hissy fit and threatened to leave the show.”
Ryan revealed that the “channel got upset.”
She added: “They didn’t want him to leave, and they gave him a new contract, which he waltzed into my dressing room and threw under my nose the next day. He said, ‘Look, you can’t be mean to me anymore, because I don’t agree to it.'”
Russell Brand was accused by six women of sexual assault, rape and other sex crimes in a bombshell lawsuit in 2023. The allegations made headlines at the time The Sunday times, the times, And Channel 4 published a joint study through their Dispatches program.
