Russell Brand took mum to Oscars to apologise

The 35-year-old British comedian admitted that he put mum Barbara through hell in his younger years, and that it was great to be able to do something to wipe the slate clean.

Talking to The Sun, he explained, 'One of the main memories I have from when I was on drugs is feeling really low with my mum. There were all those horrible things for her, like getting calls from police stations.

'I remember when I was in rehab on Christmas Day in 2002, with my mum visiting and sat on my bed - you could see that she was scared and disappointed.

'Jimmy Carr was on TV and I'd been in a show with him not long before at the Hackney Empire's New Act Of The Year.

'I had been in the same heat to get to the final but there he was on TV doing a tribute to Peter Cook - and I'm sat in rehab with my mum.

'I was a broken person and I had broken my family. I felt lonely. So being able to take her to the Oscars - a bit of payback for the stuff she went through when I was a kid - was good.'