Essex actor and comedian Russell Brand has posted a video online saying he "absolutely" denies unspecified "criminal allegations" about his personal life outlined in two "extremely disturbing letters".

Mr Brand, who grew up in Grays, Thurrock, posted the video on his YouTube and social media accounts late on Friday night, saying he received the letters from a "mainstream media TV company" and a newspaper which he said included a "litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks".

It is thought the video, titled, "So, This is Happening", could be in response to social media rumours that a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation is set to air tonight at 9pm.

In the video released to his 6.5 million YouTube subscribers and on X, formerly Twitter, he said: "Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute."

"These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies and as I have written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous."

He 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."

Mr Brand said he believes he is a part of a "co-ordinated attack" and said he is going to look into this matter because it is "very, very serious".