Russell Brand has been jailed for rape and sexual assault. The women whose remarkable courage led to his conviction have our deepest admiration and respect. We recognise that his work with the Guardian contributed to Brand’s public profile. Brand was a freelance contributor to the Guardian between 2006 and 2015. He wrote a weekly sports column between 2006 and 2009, and until 2015 contributed ad hoc articles on politics and public life. The Guardian published several book extracts in 2007 and 2014 and he was also involved in Guardian events: as the presenter of the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2005, as a guest at a morning editorial conference in 2013, and as the headline guest of a Guardian Live event in 2014. In light of his conviction it is important that we examine his contribution to the Guardian and we have undertaken a review of his articles. Some of the writing is vulgar, crass, graphic or misogynistic. We carefully considered whether to remove or amend some or all of the articles he wrote, but concluded it would not be right to present a sanitised version of his work. Instead we will provide appropriate context for readers by appending a footnote noting his conviction and jail sentence to every article. We have also updated his contributor page. In 2023 when a police investigation into the allegations against Brand began, and again this week, we wrote to all our employees to remind them of our zero tolerance approach to all forms of sexual harassment and invite them to report any allegations of misconduct to us. While we have received no reports related to Brand, we encourage anyone with concerns to contact us and we will investigate.

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