Russell Brand wants men to speak out

Russell Brand has been "indoctrinated" to speak out when he’s struggling.

The 41-year-old comic – who has previously battled drug addiction – was "concerned" to hear about the suicide of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell last week, and has urged men to communicate more when they’re experiencing suicidal thoughts as he was amazed to learn so many guys act on worrying urges very quickly.

In his ‘Trews’ YouTube broadcast with Dr. Brad Evans, he said: "I know Chris struggled with alcohol addiction but I believe he was clean at his death.

"I am always concerned when there is a suicide from someone who lived a fulfilling life. What does it say?

"Suicide or addiction or mental illness does implied you are making a decision inside your head.

"You feel like your life shouldn’t be like this and you shouldn’t feel this way. Then you cannot cope with being alive anymore. It is unimaginable.

"What surprised me was roughly half of young men do it within an hour of thinking it. That strikes me as extraordinary.

"People are just generally having an experience of life that you didn’t think would happen. Things that life has delivered to you makes you feel alienated and lost. Life doesn’t match up to what you feel on the inside.

"There is a lack of communication. I am part of a community of people. I have been indoctrinated to pick up the phone and not to stay in my own in my own head."

Dr. Evans believes male suicide is part of a wider "crisis of society" as what it means to be a man has shifted in recent years.

He said: "It takes a celebrity to bring it to the fore of public discussion. It is a much wider problem and is affecting a lot of people.

"If we look at the problem of suicide more broadly we need to ask how can we link it to an external crisis.

"There has been a shift in masculinity and we have to conform to a certain masculine model of what it means to be a male.

"These internal traumas racked up with internal questions of self doubt raises much more different questions.

"It’s a crisis of society more generally."