RUSSELL BRAND - DRUGGED-UP BRAND CAUGHT OUT BY MENTALLY ILL HECKLER

Racy British funnyman RUSSELL BRAND once poked fun at a mentally ill comedy fan while high onstage. The former drug addict thought the audience member was a heckler and decided to make an example of him. He recalls, "It was when I was addicted to crack and heroin and I thought, 'F**k people!' so I was much more difficult to work with anyway. "I was performing in a small pub in London for 50 people, and I arrived there in a giddy drug-induced haze. As I arrived, there was a comedian on the stage being heckled and I thought, 'If he tries that with me on the stage, I will take him down.' "I went into the lavatory with an ounce of marijuana and not an ounce of material and smoked myself even more senseless when I heard, 'Please welcome Russell Brand.' "I got on stage and, sure enough, the heckler was there still continuing with his protestations. With that I marched off the stage, grabbed the gentleman by his shoulders, plucked him from his chair and dragged him up towards the stage." But Brand's act brought his show to a sudden halt as pub staff dashed to rescue the comedian's victim. The comedian/actor adds, "The landlady of the pub came running out from behind the bar, screaming, 'Russell stop, he's mentally ill. He's been shot in the head.' I looked and saw a scar running down the side of his head and his eyes were rolling about in his head. "What I took to be heckling was the incessant noise of the mentally ill. It was just the noise that he made all the time. "I had to put him back in his chair, go back to the stage and win that room back. It was very difficult to make that audience love me after I had just physically assaulted Rain Man!"