**Content warning: Descriptions of sexual assault, sexual harassment and grooming**
Sometimes, it really is the person you most expect.
When Channel 4 announced on Friday 15 September that they were about to drop a shocking Dispatches documentary accusing a popular British comedian of heinous acts, rumors instantly spread that the person in question was Russell Brand, such was his bad reputation. The rumors were correct.
Brand tried to beat Dispatches to the punch by releasing a statement on YouTube before the documentary went out on television. He claimed that the “astonishing, rather baroque, attacks” referred to a time when he was “very, very promiscuous,” but all relationships were “absolutely always consensual.”
The documentary Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, part of a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4, heavily disputes that. Four women came forward and spoke about their experiences with the comedian, all accusing him of serious sexual crimes, including rape.
The nature of the allegations
One woman alleges that Brand raped her, without a condom, in 2012. She went to a rape crisis center— the Times says that journalists have seen evidence of this—but chose not to report the incident because of her intimidation over Brand’s level of fame.
Another woman, who is using the pseudonym Alice, claimed in the documentary that Brand began “dating” her when she was 16 years old and he 30. She alleges that he nicknamed her “the child” while he was grooming her, manipulated her into lying to her parents, and finally forced his penis into her mouth in a horrific assault.
Alice said, “I ended up having to punch him really hard in the stomach to get him off. I was crying and he said, ‘Oh, I only wanted to see your mascara run anyway.’” One of Brand’s stand-up comedy skits from 2006, featured in the documentary, is about “blowjobs where mascara runs a little bit.”
The behavior already in public view
As the documentary title says, Brand was hiding a lot of sexually predatory behavior in plain sight. He was embroiled in a scandal along with fellow celebrity Jonathan Ross (last seen throwing his support behind TERF/misogynist Graham Linehan) back in 2008. Brand and Ross left sexually explicit messages on the answering machine of actor Andrew Sachs, whose granddaughter Georgina Baillie was one of Brand’s exes. Ross shouted “he fucked your granddaughter!” down the phone and Brand sang “It was consensual, and she wasn’t menstrual.” With the recent allegations, social media users are revisiting the incident and questioning why that wasn’t the end of Brand’s career there and then.
The complaints made by celebrity women about Brand weren’t taken seriously either. Dannii Minogue told The Mirror newspaper back in 2006—
“He is completely crazy and a bit of a vile predator. I certainly don’t think he has cured his sex addiction, that’s for sure. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He always goes that step too far. Never quite far enough to slap his face, but usually too far. […] I was told he got sacked from MTV in the past for wearing an Osama bin Laden costume to work the day after September 11. I couldn’t believe that I’d just agreed to be interviewed by someone who would do something like that, it really unnerved me. And then throughout the whole interview he kept making shocking remarks that I can’t even repeat. Just uttering the words would make me blush.”
The original article is still there, and after Minogue’s words the Mirror writes, “So to spare Dannii’s blushes we’ve printed the naughty bits (left) of pottymouth Russ’s interview,” (these seem to be absent now) and goes on, “Last month Russell shared with us his six-point plan for success with the ladies.” Nothing better sums up the culture in which Brand was operating: one where sexual harassment was considered simply “naughty.”
“She’s very attractive, Jimmy.”
Another Brand incident is relayed in the documentary and this one involves a name that will send chills down the spine of many Brits: Jimmy Savile. Savile was only exposed as a prolific sex offender and pedophile after his death, so unfortunately he never faced consequences, but now he’s utterly and rightly reviled. The clip Dispatches re-released is from Brand’s BBC Radio 2 show in 2007, and Brand tells Savile, “I’ve got a personal assistant … and part of her job description is that anyone I demand she greet, meet, massages, she has to do it. She’s very attractive, Jimmy.” He then asks, “Would you like her to wear anything in particular, Jimmy?” and Savile says he would “prefer her to wear nothing.” It’s incredibly difficult to listen to, especially knowing that Brand would go on to have some of the biggest hits in his career in the years afterward, and Savile would die in 2011 knowing he’d gotten away with a truly monstrous amount of sexual abuse.
Brand is blaming “the mainstream media”
Brand claimed in his YouTube statement that he was the victim of “coordinated attack” from the media, who had “another agenda at play.” He said to his followers, “I’m aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, ‘Watch out, Russell, they’re coming for you, you’re getting too close to the truth.” What this “truth” is, he neglects to explain.
That Brand would take this line of defense isn’t surprising considering the turn his career has taken in recent years. Since 2020 he’s reinvented himself as a conspiracy theorist, one with some nonsensical ideas about COVID-19 in particular. This has, to put it bluntly, gained him a following of some of the worst people on the internet: Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate and more. They’ve all come out to defend him. One can only assume that Jimmy Savile would have as well, were he still alive.
The woman going under the name Alice spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour today, September 18, and said she found Brand’s defense “insulting.” She said, “I think he was building himself an audience for years that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time,” and “It is laughable that he would even imply that it’s a mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside of mainstream media.”
She also pointedly said, referring to the previous instances of Brand’s misogynist behavior that were not taken seriously, “He had a very well-known record of doing things that were inappropriate on the air, he had inappropriate conversations … There were exceptions and allowances made for him, and we need to ask ourselves why.”
(featured image: Universal)
