Russell Brand is running for London mayor, the former funnyman announcing last month that he was throwing one of his many oversized hats in the ring to run City Hall. But has he really got the business acumen to lead one of the world’s great financial centres?
Documents filed at Companies House this week showed the comic turned right wing rabble-rouser is preparing to wind down his UK company, with the value of its assets plummeting massively in the space of just 12 months.
Pablo Diablo’s Legitimate Business Firm Limited, of which Brand is the sole director, is shown as sitting on assets of £3.3million at the end of last year, down from £12.7million just a year previously.
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The difference is mostly down to £7.4million which Brand owed the company in 2024 – and which was therefore counted as an asset – which has now been wiped out. Because the company is being wound down, assets are adjusted to reflect their “net realisable values”.
Pablo Diablo also has £500,000 in loans owed to the verbose contrarian’s US company, New Color Productions Inc.
The paperwork, signed off by Brand as the company’s sole director, says: “On 31 December 2025, the director commenced plans to wind up the company. Consequently, the director has not prepared the financial statements on a going concern basis with adjustments recognised to reflect the remaining assets and liabilities at their net realisable values.”
The news comes a month after Brand announced he was running to become mayor of London in 2028. The former stand-up announced his plan to stand on the YouTube channel of right wing US commentator Tucker Carlson, saying he was campaigning as of “now”. The move comes despite him facing trial for three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault in London in October, as well as a charge of sexual assault in a civil case in New York.
Acknowledging that he would shortly be returning to the UK “possibly to serve a jail sentence”, Brand told Carlson that “amidst all this madness, with a forthcoming trial and a book out that I’m very pleased with, I’m going to run for mayor of London in 2028”.
Brand previously considered running for mayor in 2014 but now thinks that the threat he posed to the established parties posed problems. “From that moment, I was on the radar of certain forces that probably monitor online threats and vocal critics of establishment power,” said the former Big Brother’s Big Mouth presenter.
The former funnyman has yet to set out his policies, although one is to allow the people of Epping, which has seen scenes of unrest around hotels hosting asylum seekers, to hold a binding referendum on immigration. “If the people of Epping don’t want to have migrants in their community, then let them vote on it,” he said, although his policy may be thwarted by the fact that Epping is not in London and the mayor has no power over it.
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