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Russell Brand pushed back on critics of his recent Fox News appearances, even playing a 2014 video of him outside the Fox News headquarters in New York being threatened with an arrest.
Brand recently sat down with Fox News hosts like Greg Gutfeld and Tucker Carlson for interviews that have earned him plenty of pushback as the comedian has criticized Covid mandates and dismissed networks like MSNBC as corporate “propaganda.” In a new video, Brand opened up about his motivation for speaking to Fox commentators and he blasted the idea that he’s somehow morphed into a “right wing conspiracy theorist.”
“I went on Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld’s Fox News shows leading the neo liberal establishment to attack me as a right wing conspiracy theorist,” he said.
Brand acknowledged he knew going into the Carlson interview that they’d disagree on plenty culturally, but the point they could connect on was a skepticism of “centralized power.”
“Both of us came to it knowing that both of us would presumably disagree about a lot of issues. I broadly speaking belong to what you might call the cultural left. He’s a conservative person, you might say. We were surprised in fact about how many things we agreed upon, I suppose because we both agree with individual and community freedom,” Brand said.
The Arthur star also played a 2014 clip showing him outside the Fox News headquarters in 2014, filming a segment where he’s trying to get inside for an interview with Sean Hannity to dismiss the idea that’s he’s suddenly flipped his politics.
“Bear in mind that just a few short years ago, I did this at Fox News,” the comedian said.
Brand is asked in the clip by a security official if he wants to get arrested when he refuses to leave. At one point, Brand tries getting in the building and asks if he can just go to where they film Hannity’s show and “touch some stuff.”
“Whether the subject is Islamophobia or just the freedom to be in a lobby, Fox is a difficult organization to work with,” Brand said at the time.
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