He's not really an actor he's more a "comedian" (to be read unfunny clown) or "television personality".
While I generally agree with your point, talking heads in Britain are slim pickings mainly because there's no free-speech clause upheld in their laws so I appreciate that Russell Brand is a big enough personality that he'd bring up the covid shite and he's big enough that normies in the UK might actually reflect on what he has to say rather than brushing off your opinion as "Conspiracy Theorist".
Maybe you're correct in saying he still is a stooge but I think he's one of those guys who are a bit so far out there that he might be coming back around from the other side. Maybe he's matured, maybe he's changed his mind, either way you don't really see him as much on the television, probably because of his activism on Covid matters.
As if Wikipedia were a good resource (can't be assed to look to deeply in about him):
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brand's YouTube channel underwent an increase in activity and change in political direction, and was accused of promoting COVID denial and conspiracy theories.[10] According to culture reporter Louis Chilton, his videos are usually "framed with some sort of contrarian take or calling out hypocrisy in the mainstream media", and often hint "at a vague, world-altering conspiracy".[211] Chilton questioned Brand's motives, suggesting that skeptics might "question why he advertises his stand-up tour just seconds into the start of each clip".[211] In March 2023, Finn McRedmond of the New Statesman, which Brand had guest-edited in 2013, described Brand as having now melded his "trad-socialist values" with "all the suspicions and anxieties of the new American right".[212]
Brand's YouTube channel saw significant growth in popularity during this time, amassing 6.5 million subscribers and at least a billion views.[213][214] His new weekly views rose from a low of under 500,000 in November 2020 to about 14.5 million in March 2022.[215] In September 2021, Brand told people attending his tour how they could bypass COVID-19 safety measures.[216][217] The following month, YouTube began reviewing some of Brand's videos to see if they violated the site's COVID-19 vaccine policies.[218] In 2022, Brand reacted to the World Health Organization's meetings on the pandemic treaty, saying "Your democracy is fucking finished" and that the world had "lapsed into a terrible technocratic, globalist agenda".[219] Early that year, Brand released a video decrying the media for allegedly ignoring the Canada convoy protest.[220][221]
Columnist Charlotte Lytton accused Brand of following Joe Rogan "down the rabbit hole of online misinformation" by pandering to the anti-vaccine movement and spreading pro-Russian conspiracy theories about Russia's invasion of Ukraine,[222] for example promoting unfounded claims of US bioweapon labs in Ukraine.[223] Elon Musk defended Brand from media criticism on Twitter, saying: "I watched some of his videos. Ironically, he seemed more balanced & insightful than those condemning him! The groupthink among major media companies is more troubling. There should be more dissent."[224] When YouTube took down one of his videos in September 2022, citing its policy on medical misinformation,[225] he moved his channel to Rumble, where he launched a new daily live show, Stay Free with Russell Brand.[226][227]
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