Star slammed over highly awkward ‘joke’ on live TV

Russell Brand is not known for holding back when it comes to either his unique brand of comedy, or sharing his opinion.

However, the consensus is that he may have overstepped the mark with a less than tasteful joke during last night’s Comic Relief programme.

The 39-year-old came in for major criticism after making an awkward joke about syringes.

“I’m in the unfortunate position of having to ask you to donate money to buy syringes, literally the exact opposite of how I spend most of my time, and the previous two decades of my life,” he said.

With co-presenter Claudia Winkleman cringing beside him, he added: “Fighting every instinct of my being. Don’t make ‘em not work again, that’s terrible. I’ll share. Sharing is caring. Although do watch out for infectious blood diseases.”

Needless to say, Twitter users were horrified by his choice of ‘joke’, with one commenting: “Wow. People suffering from HIV and Russell Brand makes jokes about syringes and ‘banging up’?”

Meanwhile, another summed up the general feeling on social media, writing: “The awkward moment Russell Brand starts joking about how awful it is they’ve made non-reusable syringes on comic relief #GetOffTheTV”.

We're cringing very hard for him today.