Russell Brand 'smashed up dead animals'

Russell Brand has revealed that he became so obsessed with death that he used to hammer dead animals while on stage.

The comedian said that he wanted to "wake up" the audience by shocking them during his live shows.

Speaking to writer Neil Strauss for his new book Everyone Loves You When You Are Dead, Brand said: "I was fixated with dead animals and death. The driving ideology behind what I was doing was pretty safe, right?

"And I felt that people were spellbound, like they'd been hypnotised, and I had to wake them up. So I would do things to wake them up. Like, I'd have a load of dead rats or dead chicks, like baby birds, on stage.

"And I'd smash them up with a hammer and then throw them into the audience and go, 'Why are you disgusted? I've just rearranged their atoms. They're dead already. Nothing's happened. You're being shocked by nothing.'"

Strauss said that he believes the reason why the 35-year-old's behaviour was so odd was because of drugs and the fact that he was desperate for attention.

He explained: "He was clearly on drugs when he smashed the animals on stage. Also, the whole show was about shock value, because at the time he was hungry for attention because he had just started out.

"He thought this was art, it was important to him - this was him trying to be a rock star, trying to make a point about what is really right from wrong since the animals were dead before he 'killed' them. Funnily enough, since then, PETA has embraced him and called him the sexiest vegetarian."