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Russell Brand has been accused of “rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse” in a new report from the Sunday Times of London.
The joint investigation with The Times of London and Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary team was released in the UK on Saturday afternoon. Dispatches will air its 90-minute documentary about the allegations on Britain’s Channel 4 on Saturday evening. “Five women, four of whom were asked to remain anonymous, agreed to share their stories about serious sexual allegations on the show,” a spokesperson for the show said.
According to The Sunday Times, the British comedian, who originally rose to fame as a presenter on MTV UK before appearing in Hollywood films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, was accused by four women of sexual assault between 2006 and 2013.
From 2010 to 2012 he was married to the singer Katy Perry.
The newspaper reported that an alleged victim said Brand attacked her when she was 16 (he was in his 30s at the time), during a three-month “emotionally and sexually abusive” relationship that also included an incident in which he “forcibly pushed his penis down her throat.” causing her to suffocate. In another incident, she said he removed a condom during sexual intercourse without her knowledge. The woman also said Brand nicknamed her “the child,” asked her to read passages from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita” during their time together and once kissed her mother “on the mouth.”
Another alleged victim told the outlet that she was raped by the comedian at his Los Angeles home in 2012, while a third who worked with him in LA said he sexually assaulted and threatened her at his West Hollywood home in 2013 If this is the case, take legal action. She has never spoken publicly about the incident.
The Sunday Times has anonymized the names of the victims.
Other allegations detailed in the report include:
- A 24-year-old runner claimed that Brand once “showed his penis” as she walked into his locker room and “insinuated she could give him oral sex.”
- Brand’s former personal assistant Helen Berger told the newspaper that she saw Brand showing his friends “intimate pictures of women,” including pictures of a woman she knew.
- A female comedian said Brand kept “biting me in the face” whenever she saw him, while a male comedian, Daniel Slott, told the paper he knew his female colleagues had been “warning each other about Russell” for years.
Brand, who will perform a live show at Wembley Park Theater in London on Saturday evening, preemptively denied the allegations in a YouTube video titled “So, This Is Happening” that he posted on Friday evening UK time. In the video, Brand said he “absolutely rejects” the “litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks.”
“These allegations relate to the time when I worked for the mainstream media, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the cinema. And as I’ve detailed in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. Well, during this time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I always made it transparent back then – almost too transparent – and I do the same now.”
The Sunday Times reported that after Brand’s lawyers made the allegations, they said they were “unable” to respond and that further communications went unanswered.
Brand has faced a number of controversies throughout his career. In his numerous autobiographical works, he has described how he was fired from his gig as an MTV host after coming to work the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden and bringing his drug dealer into the studio. He has also written extensively about his heavy drug use and sex life.
In 2002, Brand was reportedly fired from British radio station Xfm for reading pornographic material on the show. In 2008, he was suspended and then resigned from his show on BBC Radio 2 after leaving voice messages for “Fawlty Towers” actor Andrew Sachs in which he alleged a sexual relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter.
In 2019, Brand appeared as a celebrity guest on a spin-off version of The Great British Bake-Off, in which he baked cookies in the shape of his wife’s nether regions.
In recent years, Brand has moved away from mainstream media and entertainment and instead reinvented himself as a “wellness guru,” interacting directly with audiences through social media and live events, often crossing the media and politics Establishment attacks. He was accused of spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19.
Variety has reached out to Brand and his past and present representatives for comment.
Read Brand’s full YouTube denial below:
“This is not the usual type of video we do on this channel where we criticize, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption, because in this story I am the news.”
I have received two extremely disturbing letters – or a letter and an email – one from a mainstream media television company, one from a newspaper, detailing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid things like mine Community Festival should be the case that I should not be able to attack the mainstream media narrative on this channel, but amid this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks, there are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
These accusations relate to the time when I worked in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the cinema. And as I’ve detailed in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. Well, during this time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I always made it transparent back then – almost too transparent – and I’m doing it transparently now too.
And seeing how that transparency has morphed into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me wonder if there’s another agenda at play, especially when we’ve seen coordinated media attacks before, like with Joe Rogan, when he dared to take a drug that the mainstream media did not agree with and we saw a barrage of headlines from media outlets around the world using the same language. I’m aware that you’ve been saying in the comments for some time, “Watch out, Russell, they’re coming.”
You’re getting too close to the truth for you. Russell Brand didn’t kill himself.’
I know there was a flood of articles a year ago: “Russell Brand is a conspiracy theorist,” “Russell Brand’s right wing.” I’m aware that news media has been making phone calls and sending letters to people I know for ages . It was clear to me – or at least it seems to me – that there is a serious and concerted agenda to control these types of spaces and these types of voices, and I mean my voice along with your voice.
I don’t mind them using my books and stand-up to talk about my promiscuous, consensual behavior in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations. It is also worth noting that there are witnesses whose statements directly contradict the narrative that these two mainstream media outlets appear to be trying to construct as part of what I believe is a coordinated attack.
Because the allegations are so serious, I don’t want to dwell on them, but I feel like I’m being attacked, and obviously they work very closely together. We will of course look into this matter because it is very, very serious. In the meantime, I want you to stay close to me, stay awake, but more importantly, please stay free.”