Russell Brand denied entry into Japan

Comedian Russell Brand was branded an undesirable alien in Japan Sunday after immigration officials there denied him entry into the country. He had traveled with wife, singer Katy Perry, to keep her company on her concert tour.

"So . . . my husband just got deported from Japan," Perry tweeted Sunday. "I am so. sad. I brought him all this way to show him my favorite place." As she explained about an hour later, "It was for priors from over 10 years ago!"

Brand, 35, who recently starred in the film remake "Arthur," has been arrested at least a dozen times, most recently in September at Los Angeles International Airport, after allegedly attacking a paparazzo photographing pop-star Perry, 26. He was released on $20,000 bail.

An immigration official in Tokyo declined to offer specifics, telling the news agency Agence France-Presse, "We don't make comments on such a matter because of privacy concerns."

Brand appeared sanguine, tweeting three hours after Perry that he was "planning escape from Japanese custody," where he was evidently allowed to keep his cellphone. "It's bloody hard to dig a tunnel with a chopstick. Stockholm syndrome kicking in. Just asked my guard out for (vegetarian) sushi. He giggled. Alcatraz! Shawshank Redemption! And now this! Ah, sweet blue bird of freedom!"

Perry, who married Brand in October in India, is in Japan on her California Dreams tour, where she performed in Osaka on Friday and was scheduled to perform in Nagoya Sunday and in Tokyo Monday and Tuesday.

The deportation appeared not to be notable news in Japan: The online English editions of the Daily Yomiuri and the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's two largest newspapers, carried nothing about it.