Russell Brand has been released from police custody after being charged with grabbing a photographer's phone and throwing it through a window.

He has been released on $5,000 bail after New Orleans police booked him for criminal damage to $700-worth of property.

Brand surrendered to police after a warrant was issued for his arrest on Wednesday night.

It has been reported that the charge arose from a confrontation on Monday, when Brand took an iPhone from a paparazzo in in a car and thrown it at a closed window.

On Twitter, Brand joked: ‘Since Steve Jobs died I cannot bear to see anyone use an iPhone irreverently, what I did was a tribute to his memory.’

Brand has some history with the paparazzi, as in 2010 he was arrested for an alleged attack on a photographer at an airport in Los Angeles.