People like to think that working at MTV is totally anything-goes — the halls are filled with girls dressed like Katy Perry or lounging around in bikinis like they stepped out of a Shwayze video, and the dudes all look like either Pharrell or Trace Cyrus. Not exactly (though we have seen the Shwayze dudes around here from time to time.)

We do often wear jeans and ironic t-shirts and stuff, but we also have standards. Like — for starters — not coming to work dressed as Osama Bin Laden.

Just ask Russell Brand. He got fired from his VJ gig at MTV UK when he showed up, high out of his mind on heroin, dressed as the evil bearded one on September 12, 2001. No one — including Kylie Minogue, who he was set to interview on the MTV UK equivalent of TRL — was amused. He was fired quickly thereafter. But, life’s about second chances, right? And MTV hired the now-sober comic back to the host the 2008 VMAs.

Watch Russell explain his relationship with MTV and to the VMAs in this exclusive clip.

+ Plus, check out Russell and Britney Spears’ elephant VMA promos, watch more promo spots starring Russell and Britney, and find out more about the badboy Brit.