Russell Brand accused of rape by multiple women, denies allegations
Four women have come forward in a new report accusing entertainment personality Russell Brand of sexual assault
Aux News Rape
Film star, comedian, and self-described “alternative media broadcaster” Russell Brand has been accused of sexual assault by four different women, according to a new report from The Times and Channel 4. Brand has taken to his social media channels to deny the accusations, which stem from a 7-year period during the height of his mainstream fame; speaking to his audience, he claimed that the report stems from a time when he was “promiscuous,” but that he always received consent for sexual contact.
That’s counter to reports from the anonymous women from the Times piece, one of whom says she was only 16 when Brand (who was 31 at the time, and allegedly referred to her as “the child”) had a three-month relationship with her that included an instance of alleged sexual assault. Another woman says she went to a rape crisis center in the aftermath of an encounter with Brand in his Los Angeles home; she says she later texted him “When a girl say[s] NO it means no,” which received a “very sorry” response from the star.
Another woman accused Brand of being “physically and emotionally abusive” to her, along with allegations of sexual assault; a fourth says Brand assaulted her while they were working together, and says she was threatened with legal action if she tried to report him.
In his response—which arrived ahead of the actual report, after The Times notified him of the allegations that were about to be made against him—Brand stated that “during that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual.” He also suggested that the media is pursuing an “agenda” by publishing the allegations of the four women. Discussing his “transparency” about his sexual encounters, Brand stated that, “To see that transparency metastasised into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question: is there another agenda at play?”
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Not only “if she says NO, it means NO”, but if she hasn’t said yes, or isn’t in a state to understand yes or no, then the status is NO.
I remember first hearing about/seeing Russell Brand, and thinking “This guy seems way more decent than he looks.” I guess this is just expectations regressing to the mean.
I saw on twitter a few months ago that he was on the Tucker Carlson web show. Even by giving that guy the time of day, I was thinking, “Okay we’re about to find out a lot about him I guess.”
Conservatives’ hysteria about “Cancel Culture” increasingly leads them to embrace people who don’t have any values you’d consider “conservative” in a traditional sense. Brand’s main conservative credential is that he is terrible, and thinks terrible people shouldn’t face any consequences for being terrible.
he seemed to make the jump when he went covid conspiracy theorist. Previous to that he seemed to skew left, but then he flipped to full on crazy. he was annoying before that, obviously, but the move to friend of conservative crazies was a covid thing.
The funny thing is that people have forgotten that prior to that piece of dung also known as the 45th President of the USA, anti-vaxxers tended to be hippie leftists.
True. I know a decent number of those people (i.e., the left anti-vaxxers (I am not one of them)). The difference, to me, is that the lefty antivax folks are antivax because of their “feelings” about vaccines – they have a very low bar for what counts as evidence (you hear things like “I read the evidence which shows that vaccines are safe, but I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do”) – whereas the righty antivax folks are antivax because they demand their “freedom” to choose (unironically while trying to ban abortion). That won’t capture all of the variance obviously, but it largely feels like the same behaviour (anti-vax) for somewhat different reasons. Although both far left and far right both seem to distrust the government, so maybe they share that.
Im not sure that people forgot that, I recall it being mentioned all the time…kind of like a main talking point to make sure they were sufficiently “both sides-ing” the issue. But even if that was the case…..so?? The psychotic cult members MAGA faithful decided they would ignore anyone and everyone that actually knew what they were talking about and start taking the advice of unlicensed eye doctors like rand paul, credibly accused rapist comedians like Russell Brand, sociopathic game show host turned politician Donald trump and crackpot doctors who were hocking useless supplements via websites like “Dr’s of America” or some such nonsense. Let’s not forget the role that religion played in this either with the likes of scam artists like “pastor” Greg Locke and others turning their congregations into rabid political operatives who now just accuse EVERYONE they have a political disagreement with as some kind of evil pedophile murderer who is out to personally harm them. The depths.to which these people have gone down the covid rabbit hole and eventually lead to political radicalization helped me to understand just how impactful propaganda and persistent lying can be. It is terrifying. At least the crazy leftists left people alone for the most part. They weren’t storming hospitals for “proof” that emergency rooms were empty, filing lawsuits against dr’s who refused to prescribe whatever the latest insta-cure was on cucker tarlson or scouring the tri-state area for that last canister or horse de-wormer or fish tank cleaner. My god, what a ridiculous and bizarre time period in this country. The idiocy is breathtaking.
You keep forgetting. The guiding principle of People Who Really Like Calling Themselves Moderates is that conservatives are excused from everything because politics is less about assessing ideas in practical terms than what side of a government building some old dead French people sat on 300 years ago.
True, they left everyone alone, except where they have diseases like measles to spread in cells of lower vaccination rates…
He was on Bill Maher very frequently. I was forced to watch an episode he was on. He argues like Trump, talks over everyone gish gallops like crazy. I’d frankly punch a man like that in the face and suffer the consequences then put up with it.
Yeah, I’ve never found him to be funny or particularly intelligent about things he’s perfectly happy to blather on about. The way he covers up his ignorance is to do just as you say — talk bollocks loudly and confidently while not allowing anyone else the chance to say anything… and dismiss anything they do say with condescension and arrogance.
well, maher’s around the bend now. At least now that he’s scabbing people who have been making excuses for him have to acknowledge that he isn’t who they have been pretending he is (in their own heads). Strangely if you say “woke” every third sentence you probably are no longer a left leaning independent
“I was forced to watch an episode he was on.”
No, you weren’t.
It’s always the person you least suspect. Here, Brand is the person you most suspect, which makes you think you shouldn’t suspect him, which makes him the person you least suspect.See, the rule is flawless.
It’s always the person you could suspect.
Yeah well I’ve developed an immunity to iocane powder.
I mean the fact that he looks like he wears Johnny Depp’s cast offs probably should have indicated he was a bit of a prick.
PARKLIFE!
I’m glad you’re getting your sexual assault chuckles!
Oh God, I thought we had moved past this kind of thing around 2016, when Lindy West appointed herself emperor of jokes. There’s nothing inconsistent about thinking a subject is serious and making a joke about it. And nothing in my joke suggests that abuse victims should be doubted or that abusers should not be punished.
I’m glad you’re satisfying your really exhausting jollies with this comment!
I hope you’re enjoying the smell of your own farts.
Its like a negative minus a negative. You’d think that balances out but no, life isn’t fair.
“is there another agenda at play?”Well, when you pivot from comedian to conspiracy theorist then of course this becomes your default response. Maybe his whole deal in the past few years was a plan to insulate himself from these accusations…which is pretty conspiratorial as well. Mind blowing work, Russell!Also didn’t Katy Perry have a lot of not great things to say about him at the end of their marriage? Include some questionable sex stuff? Did we all jusy blow it off because she’s Katy Perry?
It looks like Perry said that Brand pressured her to have kids, which she attributes to a desire for control. He also broke up with her via text. I don’t think that news was dismissed because of Perry in particular, but instead because it mainly told us that Brand was a weirdo and jerk, neither of which is especially surprising.News that Brand is not just a jerk, but has engaged in sexual abuse, seems different.
I’m PRETTY sure there was more to it, but I’m also not gonna spend my day looking around for more info.
Who would have thought that a malignant narcissist could also be an abuser?
I was a fan of his back when he was still a comedian including the time when all of this would have been happening. I remember there was a lot of tabloid interest in him at the time about his hook ups which all read as…not great, but at the time he was able to play for laughs. Those weren’t criminal stories, but things included in them makes this all feel very foreseeable.
Another scumbag boosted into fame by Judd Apatow.
Unfortunately he was famous in the UK before Apatow introduced him to American audiences.
The Sachsgate thing years back definitely had already outed him as a scumbag in the UK,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russell_Brand_Show_prank_calls_row
It fucking kills me that Jonathan Ross was involved in this shit with that absolute bellend Russell Brand.I’m not exactly his biggest fan, but he seems like a nice guy. Nice guys can be massive dickheads sometimes. Pretty much everyone can be fucking awful.I think it’s always been like that, and it always will be.People are fucking awful.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of Jonathan’s nice guy image has been built in the last decade or so. In the late 90s-mid 00s, he also had a reputation for being pretty sleazy.
Oh, I know that. But “famous in the UK comedy scene” and “famous from Hollywood movie” are *very* different strata, sorry.
He was much more than just “famous in the UK comedy scene.” He was probably one of the most famous English-speaking celebrities in the entire world, outside of the US, when he first appeared in an American movie. You’re making him sound like he was Stewart Lee or (at best) David Mitchell.
But in this case he was specifically cast in FSM (where he was indeed hilarious) to riff on his libertine persona, which was very well known to American audiences at that point.
Nobody outside of the UK knew anything of his “persona” until *after* FSM.
This is a strange argument. Apatow’s responsible for finding funny people to be in his movies, and for making sure those people behave professionally during the movies. Brand is very funny in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and none of the allegations here concern any conduct during the filming of an Apatow movie. I don’t see how he’s responsible for the fact that people he has worked with turn out to be jerks in ways totally disconnected from his films.
Really? What “argument” do you presume I’m making, exactly?Just noting another Judd pick gone wrong. I didn’t imply any causation. For all we know, it’s coincidence.
I had assumed your comment had a point. My mistake.
Yes, genius. The entire, briefly-stated point was that he is another scumbag boosted by Judd Apatow. IOW: he was a UK small-name “talent” when he was plucked out by Apatow (and Stoller) and featured in a Hollywood relatively-big comedy release – and then the same character was given his own lead-role comedy feature by Apatow & Stoller soon thereafter, launching his Hollywood career. Do you dispute that? Great.That was it – no “argument”, no proposed or implied reasoning, causation, or stakes. (There are no such “theses” requirement in these comments, and *that’s* your “mistake”. And I forgive you.)_______________Now, all that said: while you’ve been spending your productive weekend adding pithy comments to the Kinja machine, I was in Toronto enjoying TIFF. I caught up with my friend D, the Apatow PA who was Brand’s ‘minder’ on “Sarah Marshall”, and whose story as such was then adapted into “Get Him To The Greek”, and, what do y’know? You can look forward to many, many more shoes dropping in this story from here on in, so you will have so many more opportunities to show everyone how clever you are. Start banking them up now, ya big talent. (Judd & Nick already have press arranged for it, so look for that – you can have a ‘defense’ ready before you even have to bother reading it!)
You could have just taken the L. There would have been more dignity in it.
Oh, no no – you *earned* that L, you get to keep it.
“I didn’t imply any causation.”
You absolutely did, and now you’re pathetically pretending you didn’t, for some reason. Probably because you’re a fucking loudmouth coward, like most people, who can’t back up their big words when someone challenges them.
Be less pathetic, OK?
Something something James Franco… something Jonah Hill…something Russell Brand…3 out of let’s say 50 people who revolve around Apatow’s work have been outed as abusers. So yeah, he’s clearly got a monster factory going.
also, he made that and Get Him to the Greek (in which, again, he wasn’t playing a paragon of virtue) and then despite that directors kept giving him jobs (including Julie Taymor, Kenneth Branagh) that has pretty much been it for stardom here…that’s why he wound up trying to become a cult head, because he failed to stay big, people got tired of his schtick.
He doesn’t exactly have range.
His trajectory is really interesting, it looks like by the time he starred in and produced the remake of Arthur his career as a lead was already over. He did some voice work and that was pretty much it until Branagh cast him and then this last year LENA DUNHAM of all people cast him.
Let’s attack people by association! Who needs reasons!
The guy whose formative sexual experiences involved (from his own autobiography) his dad procuring drugs and hookers for him, grows up a rapist?The guy whose whole schtick is shouting transgressive nonsense for shock value, then waiting to be loved for it?I’m shocked – shocked! – to find that gambling is going on in here!
Katy Perry was interviewed by Vogue in 2013 and here’s what was published: “At first when I met him he wanted an equal, and I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal, but then they get that equal and they’re like, I can’t handle the equalness. He didn’t like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful, and it was very controlling, which was upsetting. I felt a lot of responsibility for it ending, but then I found out the real truth, which I can’t necessarily disclose because I keep it locked in my safe for a rainy day. I let go and I was like: This isn’t because of me; this is beyond me. So I have moved on from that.”Katy, time to spill the beans.https://www.vogue.com/article/beauty-and-the-beat-katy-perrys-first-vogue-cover
Though, to be fair, IF she knew this stuff and has been “keep[ing] it locked in [her] safe for a rainy day” then fuck her for being part of the problem. If you know someone is a sexual predator and keep it quiet just in case you need it later, then fuck you. Fuck you sideways.
On one hand I totally agree but on the other hand I don’t want to victim blame her for it. But I do feel like if she knew he was a massive creep it would have been good to share before he sexual abused more women
It’s not victim-blaming Katy Perry if she knew about other victims and said nothing so she’d have some ammunition for the future if she needed it. Again, this is IF she actually knew anything – which may not be the case at all. The “real truth” she learned might just be that Russell Brand is a piece of shit.
It might be my Orange County sympathy coming through, but I don’t want to just dismiss Perry outright for this. She was a Christian girl who agreed to marry Brand after a long line of famous suitors. Her upbringing taught her to respect and obey her husband, above all else. We can’t know if she was abused by him the same way the women after their divorce were, but we can assume. She likely didn’t have the tools to hold him accountable properly. Or was traumatized by this asshole. Let’s focus on the actual person responsible.
> “focus on the actual person responsible”
Jesus?
Hooooo yeah
“It’s not victim-blaming Katy Perry if she knew about other victims and said nothing so she’d have some ammunition for the future if she needed it.”
So she should have been outing victims who weren’t ready to come forward until now?
*ahem*
Fuck you sideways. And up and down. Until you are bleeding. Profusely.
Fuck you sideways.I love this, but I have no idea what it means. Anyway I can’t star your post enough. One of my sisters is married to someone who raped another of my sisters. We don’t talk anymore but I just cannot wrap my mind around her decision to stay with him. They have a teenage daughter too and I’m just like HOW THE FUCK DO YOU STILL SUPPORT THIS MAN.And then of course she got all mad when I told all her friends he was a rapist and thinks I’m an asshole. That’s gotta be the most personal thing I’ve ever posted on here and I seriously considered deleting it but fuck, man people are weird when it comes to rapists.
She always has been wishy washy lets have a conversation guys kinda person. I mean she voted for the right winger in the LA mayoral race. Husband did bad things but I’ll keep it to myself is well within her wheelhouse if she knew of course. Big if.
I would agree with you if what Perry’s talking about is abuse she is aware of that Brand committed against others. But if she’s talking about abuse Brand committed against her, I think we want to be very hesitant about arguing that she is a bad person for not revealing the information. As far as I’m concerned, sexual assault victims didn’t ask to be in that situation, and they can choose to reveal information about their assault or not as they choose, even if that means disclosing information at times for reasons that are less than wholly altruistic.
Absolutely, if she has something specific she should turn it over to investigators.
It’s more likely she found out he was cheating on her, or sabotaging her birth control, or something personal like that. I suspect she knew he was being abusive to her (because she seemed pretty miserable with him, by the end), and got evidence he’d betrayed her even further, but chose to simply get rid of him rather than say why and start a tabloid frenzy that would affect her too.In other words, she may have had dirt on him, ten years ago, that she was biting her tongue about, but that doesn’t mean she knew him to be a rapist.
Of course. But since women are coming forward, no harm in seeing the full asshole for himself if she has more to share.
It really does seem like the thing that unites the crazies on the left, right, and in the center is misogyny. That supersedes all political views. It’s why someone who basically was a radical leftist could have a sit-down with Tucker Carlson. It also seems to be why domestic violence is so predictive of mass shootings and larger threats. I was so confused by Brand’s rebrand, if you will, but this makes it make a lot of sense.
What “radical leftist” sat down with Tucker Carlson?
Brand portrayed himself as a radical leftist especially post-2008 and during Occupy Wall Street.
Lol you guys have a very low threshold for what is “radical leftism.”
I never once believed Russell Brand as a radical leftist. It never rang true and he is not nearly as intelligent or as informed as the people who listened to him believed. The English accent (in the US) carried a lot of weight, but he is a moron. The most dangerous thing he said to his young supposedly leftist followers at the time was that voting was pointless and they shouldn’t even bother. Because YES, the BEST way to make change in a voting democracy is to, you know, not vote at all — or at least make sure that the people who supposedly believe the same thing as you don’t vote… moron.
I’m reading this thinking “Isn’t this the guy who played a moron rock star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and it’s sort of sequel?” That’s all I know him from so it’s really weird to hear that people were listening to him and thought he was intelligent?
The remake of “Arthur” with him in the Dudley Moore role was excretable. Easily one of the worst movies ever made. And a certain subset of Americans tend to mistake talking really, really fast as a sign of intelligence. See Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, etc….Throw in a British accent and right-wing talking points, and you’ve got the makings of a cult following, which it is starting to appear that he actually has.
It’s wild how many people I knew on the left pre-Covid who always talked about how intelligent they thought he was because he “asked the big questions” and “didn’t just believe what the government tells you”. I always thought he sounded like a fuckwit who would cover up his ignorance of things by talking louder, more confidently or bring up the old “I’m just asking questions” line.
No, eschewing participation in electoral politics for direct action instead is definitely a characteristic of radical leftism. For example, in the US, why would radical leftists vote for Democrats—a party that not only believes in and upholds neoliberalism (thanks, Bill!) but also actively shuts out/attacks even non-radical leftist candidates (and nominees!), and marginalizes the few mildly leftist members (Sanders, “the Squad”) it has? Yes, fascists are worst, but radical leftists have little confidence liberals are equipped to fight fascism (arguments can be made that liberals actually help fascism to grow). Idpol? Rainbows projected onto the White House lawn and stern lectures to Republicans during congressional hearings do little to help poc and lgbtq meet their basic material needs. It isn’t about “both parties are the same” it’s about “both parties hurt us in various ways with their good cop/bad cop routine.” Radical leftists don’t consider America a democracy at all.That said, believing voting is pointless/not participating in elections isn’t relegated to radical leftism by any means. It’s a pretty popular sentiment across the spectrum. It doesn’t qualify anyone who espouses vague populist sentiment like Brand as a radical leftist.
Morning!“help poc and lgbtq meet their basic material needs”Communism doesn’t help anyone meet their basic material needs (pounding on table lmfao). See: all of history.That’s about it for today.Have fun with the revolution, comrade! Oh, am I “hitting refresh every second blah blah blah.” Responding to a comment a half an hour later is not exactly refreshing the page over and over, you dipshit genocide-denier fuckup homophobic racist-hoax-believing cunt.Ta Ta.
He’s every bit as radical a leftist as Ben Elton.Which is to say, a Tory.
Do you have any quotes from 2008 where he states he is an anti-capitalist? I don’t think they exist, but more importantly, do you have any quotes from recent years? Ya know, when he was on Tucker Carlson?
Google.com
You made the claim. You back it up, brain genius.
All of the positions on the political spectrum have misogynists, but there’s a strong imbalance in where the bulk of them call home
Yeah, and that home would be the left. Weinstein and Lauer being the most egregious of the fucking awful liberal monsters running around in Hollywood.
Yep, misogyny, transphobia, complaining about canceling or woke, and Russia seem to be some real center points for both extremes.
There’s no misogyny on the left? Ask your average feminist or lesbian the treatment they get from angry male fetishists. Heck, the left destroyed women right down to the definition of the word.
Yeah look at Kucinich: calls himself far left, suspicious ties to Russia, now trying to throw the election to Trump
Oh yeah that guy… he also likes Assad for some bloody reason.
Kucinich overdosed on the FOX News kool-aid after 2004. He tried pushing his agenda at a time when there simply wasn’t any mainstream audience for it, and then got lured in by the dazzling lights and money waved around by the Murdochs after Democrats used a redistricting to eliminate his relatively safe seat. FOX brought him in to be the Democrat willing to savage other Democrats from the left, and then he drank way too much of that juice and became the thing he’d been fighting against.
I remember watching his heel turn in 2008 when he declared FOX News a “legitimate news organization” and was one of like three fringe candidates to show up to their “debate.”
I wish I could say it’s dastardly but in reality it is just pathetic. Same with Maher, they’re just sad needy people who abandon all of their principles at the drop of a hat
Yeah, exactly. Dude risked his career for his ideals, lost his career, and then sold out his ideals for some quick cash.
Honestly though can you blame him? There is good money to be made selling raw piles of shit to these flies, and the grift is so easy to get into.
Centrists love horseshoe theory because it’s as lazy as they are.
Damn. Well, at least he didn’t do anything REALLY bad, like lie about being racially profiled in his standup routine.
Abort yourself.
Hmmm isn’t this the same BS they used to arrest Julian Assange, a man who was given access by a US government employee to share the fact the US military were engaged in war crimes. Anyone with any sense of justice must be disturbed by ‘victims’ of sexual assault coming forward after all these years. I mean it comes down to he said she said. Is that the necessary bar of beyond reasonable doubt? No it isn’t is it. I’m not a big fan of Brand but to defame a person based on heat say evidence is pretty low even for British media. Mean Andrew who paid off his victims is free and we still don’t have Epsteins client list and G Maxwell is in Jail for trafficking minor to know one.
A direct accusation is not “heat [sic] say evidence.”Are you a retard? A rapist? Or both?
Oh, maybe I won’t get into another piontless internet argument.
“Anyone with any sense of justice must be disturbed by ‘victims’ of sexual assault coming forward after all these years.”
Yes, people who like justice should be disturbed by people being comfortable seeking justice.
Why don’t you go fuck one of the corpses in your basement and leave the rest of us alone.
41st best comedian Stewart Leethought Brand was a wrong ‘un …turns out he was right.
Robbie Williams has really let himself go
“Makes him sound like a child molester trying to convince himself to allow himself to molest himself” is a cracker of a line.
Man, large parts of “Exiting The Vampire Castle” really aren’t aging well. Even independently of these allegations I have no idea what Mark Fisher saw in this guy.
His voice is certainly an assault.
I cannot believe a British anti vaxxer covid nut conspiracy theorist transphobic pro Russian actor would do this. Its absolutely stunning…
Fast talking Brand, he thinks he’s slick by using big words and talking fast. See how smart I am? Everyone applause now so I feel good about myself. F this dude! I knew he was a rapist! It tracks.
You mean the guy who’s spent his entire career conducting himself like he permanently resides in a police lineup has possibly run afoul of the law? Surely you jest.
Do Joe Rogan next! Take all these arrogant money grubbing alpha male conspiracy freaks down!
rAVpe Club 🙁
Absolutely nobody is surprised by this.
So, groupies complaining about having been groupies.There is literally nothing to see here.
Here we go again….A Persson or group of persons come together and make accusations that have no way of being proved. as most of us reading about this have no personal experience as to what might have happend 10,20,30 50,60 yrs ago. getting on the web dosnt prove anything video and witnesses can at least show that the accusations have substance. That’s why we have courts, And Police To gather evidence to show proof one way or another.
So the report from the rape crisis centre and texts he sent apologising to the victim aren’t proof?
What?
Get raped.
I DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE. We’re private citizens with opinions and if you don’t like it you can fuck right off.
I guess Sarah Marshall forgot him because he roofied her. Goodbye.
I’m giving you a star but I’m not happy about it.
Are you implying that you’re giving up your star against your will?
No, but I am giving it away against my better judgement.
I’ve been saying for years that he has “Charles Manson eyes” in so many photos. I have always found him quite unnerving and I can absolutely see his 6’2″ hyper-aggressiveness being terrifying. This one does not surprise me.
To Squid Eatin Dough:Morning!“help poc and lgbtq meet their basic material needs”Communism doesn’t help anyone meet their basic material needs (pounding on table, lmfao). See: all of history.That’s about it for today.Have fun with the revolution, comrade!
“ItS jUsT nEvEr BeEn ImPlImEntEd cOrRecTlY”
Trust me, this person good definitely do it right this time. Don’t worry. Line up against the wall…I love how he claims he’s not obsessed with me but sent me gay porn for 2 days straight and responds to my every post.
Wow. Who’d have thought someone I disagree with politically is absolutely guilty upon accusation?