Russell Brand drops sweater supplier amid merchandise row

British comic Russell Brand has parted ways with a manufacturer which produced sweatshirts for his website after it emerged that some products which were touted as made in Britain were actually produced in Bangladesh.

The Get Him to the Greek funnyman sells a range of clothes, including $96 sweatshirts, featuring the logo of his online talk show, The Trews, which airs on YouTube.com.

A message on Brand's website, Russellbrand.com, declares that all the clothing on the site is "Screen printed and produced in the U.K." while, "All net profits from the sales... will be donated to various charitable causes. We don't make a penny!"

Editors at Britain's Daily Mail newspaper published an article on Saturday (05Jun15) which suggested the $96 sweatshirts are actually made in Bangladeshi factories where staff are paid under $1 (62p)-an-hour.

Brand has now hit back at the report and insisted he had no knowledge of the source of the clothing. He goes on to declare the situation has now been rectified and he has terminated his contract with the supplier.

In a post on his blog, the comedian writes, "We found out that a couple of the sizes of sweatshirts we offer may not have been sourced in the ethical way we thought - madly the Daily Mail brought this to our attention (snidely) - we've responded to em (them) & ironed out a few of their attempts to s**t stir. We've got shot of the manufacturer so the DM (Daily Mail) can go back to focusing on their owners dubious tax affairs. All Trews merch (merchandise) profit goes towards building community social enterprise projects."