Russell Brand's cat Morrissey has died.

The 44-year-old comedian and actor revealed his cat - who was named after the Smiths singer - has passed away during a 15-minute video about death, which was uploaded to Instagram over the weekend.

Starting the lengthy video, Russell said: ''Hello from the lockdown. Today, I'm talking to you about death. Specifically the death of an animal, more specifically still my beloved pet cat Morrissey. But I think many of the things that I share may be relatable to death more generally. Though of course, I'm not suggesting that my personal loss is as painful as your loss, particularly if we're comparing an animal to a human.''

Russell went on to claim the death of his cat ''affected [him] viscerally'', and said he has ''never'' been more affected by a death in his life.

He explained: ''But to speak about this on purely personal terms, I've never been more affected by a death in my life. I've been quite lucky - I mean as a drug addict I know lots of drug addicts who have died, and you become somewhat inured to the death of drug addicts - but both my parents are still alive, thank god, and I've never had a death in the other direction. I've lost friends of course, but the death of my beloved cat Morrissey ... it reached deep inside me and affected me viscerally.''

The 'Get Him to the Greek' star had his cat for almost 17 years, and says the loss of the moggy has hit him so hard because he had relied on his pet for comfort during the darkest times of his life.

He added: ''Morrissey was due to be put down due to renal failure, and to watch his slow senescence was a sad thing to endure. Because I suppose this cat, this cat Morrissey, my cat, I've had him for 16 and a half years, and when I got him I lived in a one room flat in Gospel Oak North London. This cat traversed oceans with me and lived with me in like maybe 10 or 15 houses. He was there on my lap as I watched myself as main stories on the news - Russell Brand destroys the BBC ... remember that crazy event?''