British Comedian Russell Brand In Hot Water

Controversial comedian Russell Brand has resigned from his national radio show in the UK, after prank calling actor Andrew Sachs and leaving rude messages on his answering machine during a radio show.

Brand is perhaps best known in the US for his controversial comments during the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards in which he branded George Bush a 'retard' who he claimed would not be 'trusted with scissors' in England.

Sachs on the other hand is best known for his role as Manuel on the classic British comedy series, Faulty Towers.

Evidently Sachs was scheduled to appear on Brand's radio show, he couldn't make it, so the prank calling began.

Among some of the adult content message was a claim by Brand that he had slept with Sachs' 23 year old grand daughter, Georgina Baillie, who goes by the stage name Voluptua (pictured above) when performing with her Gothic performance group The Satanic Sluts.

Well the prank calling upset Sachs (aged 78). 18,000 people called the BBC to complain. The whole thing blew up to the point where even Prime Minister Gordon Brown commented publicly on the situation.

The BBC threatened to suspend Brand, and his on air colleague who also participated, and ultimately Brand decided to apologize and resign from his $350,000 a year job.

I guess that's what you call a prank call that went very wrong.

UPDATE: Apparently the story was discovered to be even more juicy when it was revealed that Baillie and Brand did in fact have a brief sexual relationship at one time.

You know it's one thing to be making jokes about sleeping with a hot girl. But if you actually did, broadcasting lewd details of that encounter on national radio (and doing so on her grandfather's answer machine) is pretty tasteless.

So I guess now my sympathy for Brand just dropped a few points.