‘It was harmless’: Katharine McPhee DENIES Russell Brand made her feel uncomfortable by bouncing her on his knee on Tonight Show in 2013 – as host Jimmy Fallon jokingly tells the embattled comedian off

Singer Katherine McPhee has spoken out after a clip resurfaced showing her bouncing up and down on Russell Brand‘s lap.

The 39-year-old said the incident, which occurred during The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in 2013, was ‘harmless’.

Brand, now 48, appeared on the talk show a decade ago and tried to flirt with the married actress.

But on Monday the singer – who has been married twice – poured cold water on such suggestions.

‘This specific incident was over 10 years ago and it was harmless,’ she stated.

The video resurfaced as Russell has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by four women during the peak of his fame, following a joint investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches.

The explosive allegations are said to have taken place between 2006 and 2013, while Russell was a presenter for BBC Radio 2 and Channel 4. He has denied the claims. 

During the Jimmy Fallon interview, Russell refused to move out of the interview chair as Katharine stepped up to talk to the host. 

The television presenter grabbed Katharine’s hand with the actress jokingly sitting on his lap. He told Jimmy: ‘She’s welcome to sit here’.

The host then told Russell: ‘No Russell, don’t even say for the queen, you can’t.’

The comedian then shouted: ‘For the queen’ as he suggestively bounced Katharine, who appeared shocked, and quickly leapt up. 

Jimmy put his hand to his face and looked stressed as Russell told Katharine: ‘you’re beautiful’. 

Jimmy said: ‘Russell, please stop. Look away.’

Brand, who is famous for his acerbic, highly sexualised and outrageously crude comedy, joked: ‘I’ll just sit here with my sexual charisma’. 

Russell continued to flirt with Katharine throughout the interview, before coming to the realisation she was married to actor Nick Cokas, 58. The couple had married in 2008 but later divorced in 2016. She then married for a second time, this time to composer David Foster, 73.

Brand continued: ‘As you know, I’ve announced it, I find Katharine very attractive and I think when she said ‘exchange numbers,’ I thought things I’d like to exchange with her.

Russell then shouted: ‘Numbers. Genes. Genetic info. Data.’

After Jimmy spoke about Katharine’s husband, Russell interjected: ‘I didn’t know you were married. I’m going to f**k off now.’ 

It comes as The Times and Sunday Times claim ‘several women’ have come forward with undisclosed allegations about Brand’s behaviour during the early 2000s in wake of their joint investigation with Channel 4 which was published on Saturday.

The maverick actor and stand-up comic has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and blamed the ‘mainstream media’ for the ‘litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks’. 

The latest allegations – which the newspaper says have not been investigated, but will now be ‘rigorously checked’ – follow accusations from four women, including one who claims she was sexually assaulted by Brand during a three-month relationship with him when she was 16 and still at school. 

The BBC is now also facing ‘urgent questions’ after it was claimed Brand used his company-provided car service to pick the girl up from school.

It comes as both BBC and Channel 4 have launched internal investigations into separate accusations of predatory behaviour by Brand towards staff and audience members during the time of his employment. 

Channel 4 has since removed all programmes linked to Brand from its website, including episodes of The Great British Bake Off and Big Brother’s Big Mouth in which he was featured, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Netflix has since been urged to remove his comedy special, titled Re:Birth, from its streaming catalogue. 

The BBC’s probe was announced minutes before Scotland Yard piled on the pressure by announcing that detectives would like to speak to the comedian’s alleged victims.

Among the complaints raised in the investigation were allegations by one woman, who alleged Brand raped her against the wall in his Los Angeles home. 

Another woman alleged the comedian sexually assaulted her while she worked with him in Los Angeles and that he threatened her with legal action if she told anyone.

While the third claimed she was sexually assaulted by Brand who she alleges was physically and emotionally abusive towards her.

The fourth woman, referred to as Alice to protect her identity, said she was 16 when he choked her during a sexual act.

She alleges he took her virginity, was ‘preoccupied’ with her being ‘innocent and pure’, and often referred to her as ‘The Child’.

Alice described his behaviour towards her as ‘grooming’ as Brand would allegedly provide her with scripts on how to deceive her parents into allowing her to visit him. She also claimed he would send his ‘BBC car’ to her secondary school to pick her up.

‘The first time I used it, he told me it was booked to take him to his radio show but he had a friend taking him instead so I should use that car,’ she told The Times.

She claimed the chauffeur once took her from Brand’s home to her grandmother’s house and that on a separate occasion the same car ‘picked me up from school’.

Alice added: ‘It was the same car…I knew that that was a BBC car.’

The BBC did not initially commit to an inquiry but amid the growing outcry, it shifted its position last night and a spokesman said it was ‘urgently looking into the issues’.

In a statement, a BBC spokesman said: ‘The documentary and associated reports contained serious allegations, spanning a number of years.

‘Russell Brand worked on BBC radio programmes between 2006 and 2008 and we are urgently looking into the issues raised.’ 

Brand has lashed out at ‘aggressive’ media claims as he insisted any relationships he had ‘during his time of promiscuity’ were ‘consensual’ in a 2min 45sec monologue to his 11million followers on X and 6.5million subscribers on YouTube.

He accused the news organisations of coordinating an attack on him, telling his followers: ‘Is there another agenda at play?

‘Particularly when we’ve seen coordinated media attacks before, like with Joe Rogan, when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn’t approve of, and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world using the same language.’