Russell Brand: `Money made me hit the f**k it button`

The British comedian has battled addictions to hard drugs, alcohol, and sex. He said that when the money started rolling in he was powerless to change his destructive ways.

In an interview with author Neil Strauss, which is published in his new book, Everyone Loves You When You're Dead, Brand said, 'I was addicted to crack and heroin at that time and was... I've always had some destructive tendencies and I was unstable.

'I had no off switch. I was unable to manage it. Up until then I'd never had money in my life and as soon as people gave me money, I just hit the 'f**k' it button and blew up.'

He also made a grisly confession that he would use dead animals in his early stand-up shows to shock people.

'I was fixated with dead animals and death,' he told Neil. '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.'