“I know nothing what you are trying to claim here but this specific incident was over 10 year ago and it was harmless,” McPhee wrote in response to the resurfaced clip.
Katharine McPhee is speaking out amid a resurfaced clip of her and actor-comedian, Russell Brand.
In the 2013 clip McPhee is introduced as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, when she’s greeted by Brand who is sitting in what’s supposed to be her seat.
Instead of moving over to the second chair Brand stays where he is, McPhee takes his cue and sits on his lap.
“Katharine is welcome to sit here,” he quips.
Brand then proceeds to wrap his arms around the American Idol alum, hugging the actress before yelling “for the queen” and suggestively bouncing her on his lap, as she tries to get up and take the second seat.
The pair were both all laughs at the time, despite McPhee displaying a look of shock over the bit, which led many viewers of the resurfaced clip to believe that Brand made the singer-actress uncomfortable.
Host Jimmy Fallon even came to McPhee’s defense at the time, urging Brand to take his seat and look away from the Smash star.
“Russell, please stop. Look away,” Fallon says to a boisterous Brand, who later in the clip makes comments on McPhee’s appearance, calling the then twenty-something starlet, “very attractive.”
After the Daily Mail posted a screenshot of the video on Instagram, with the caption, “She looks so uncomfortable,” McPhee took to the comments, telling the outlet that the interaction was “harmless.”
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“Daily Mail — I know nothing what you are trying to claim here but this specific incident was over 10 years ago and it was harmless,” McPhee wrote. “Please don’t try and use me for whatever purpose you are trying to serve.”
The resurfaced clip comes as Brand faces a myriad of sexual assault allegations, with the UK’s Sunday Times and a Channel 4 “Dispatches” TV special claiming that “several women” have come forward with allegations about Brand’s behavior between 2006 to 2013.
Brand has vehemently denied the allegations, blaming the “mainstream media” for the “litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks” against him.
TooFab has reached out to reps for both Brand and McPhee for comment.
