Russell Brand grew up in Essex. His father left when he was three months old he was bulimic at 12 & left school at 16 to study at the Italia Conti stage school. There he began drinking heavily & taking drugs. He regularly visited prostitutes in Soho began cutting himself took drugs on stage during his st&-up shows & even set himself on fire while on crack cocaine. He has been arrested 11 times & fired from 3 different jobs
- including from XFM & MTV
- & he claims to have slept with over 2 000 women. In 2003 Russell was told that he would be in prison in a metal hospital or dead within six months unless he went in to rehab. He has now been clean for three years. In 2006 his presenting career took off & he hosted the NME awards as well as his own MTV show 1 Leicester Square plus Big Brother's Big Mouth on Channel 4. His UK st&-up tour was sold out & his BBC Radio 6 show became a cult phenomenon the second most popular podcast of the year after Ricky Gervais. He was awarded Time Out's Stand Up Comedian of the Year & won Best Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards. In 2007 Russell hosted both the Brit Awards & Comic Relief & continued to front Big Brother's Big Mouth. His BBC2 radio podcast became the UK's most popular. Russell writes a weekly football column in the Guardian & is the patron of Focus 12 a charity helping people with alcohol & substance misuse.