Behind the scenes, Russell Brand’s behavior was no secret

“I just like it without a condom.” Enthusiastic applause from the audience. “Why not, let’s welcome the idea of ​​sex!” Screams and roars from the spectators who came to see comedian Russell Brand’s stand-up performance in 2006. Sex, where mutual consent seems like an afterthought at best, has always been a staple of the persona Russell Brand, comedian, presenter and YouTuber.

Controversies followed Brand throughout his career, yet he grew into a well-known British presenter and Hollywood star himself. Behind the scenes of programs like Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Big Brother’s Efourumproduced by production company Endemol, Brand’s sexual misconduct was no secret at the time, employees told the British newspaper The Sunday Times and TV program Channel 4 Dispatches. He allegedly asked crew members to approach young girls from the audience for him so that he could meet them after the broadcast. Two former employees told the newspaper that it felt as if they were his “personal pimp”.

Four women accuse Brand in the newspaper article and TV program of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse. The misconduct took place during the height of his career, between 2006 and 2013. One of the women was said to have been sixteen years old at the time. Among other things, he is said to have once pushed his penis down her throat, causing her to be unable to breathe. The woman had to punch him in the stomach to get him to stop, she says. A second woman claims she was raped in his Los Angeles home. The BBC, Channel 4 and Endemol have launched internal investigations. British politicians have called on victims to report the incident to the police.

Sex addict

Pushing the limits of what was acceptable was Brand’s trademark. His flamboyant manner and tendency to kick ass with a good laugh made him a popular guest on British television and radio, including the BBC. He also starred in a number of moderately received Hollywood comedies such as Get Him to the Greek (2010) with Jonah Hill.

In 2001 he worked as a presenter at MTV and popped up he dressed as Osama bin Laden the day after the attack on the Twin Towers. According to him, this may have been due to the fact that he was on heroin and crack, he later confessed. He regularly joked about his past as a drug addict, his sex life and debauchery. In his 2007 memoir, he admitted that he had a sex addiction and had been in a clinic for this.

Between 2006 and 2008 he had his own radio program on the British public broadcaster, The Russell Brand Show, which was ended after going overboard during a broadcast. With guest presenter Jonathan Ross, he sent a series of voicemail messages live on the radio Fawlty Towers-actor Andrew Sachs in which Brand explained in detail how he had sex with Sachs’ granddaughter. The BBC received a record number of complaints and was eventually fined £100,000 by British media regulator Ofcom. It was, in the broadcaster’s words, “one of the biggest scandals in the history of the BBC.”

Stand-up comedy scene

Media scholar Ellie Tomsett, who researches Britain’s stand-up circuit at Birmingham City University, characterizes Brand to the AP as a product of a stand-up comedy scene that was steeped in misogyny in the 1990s and 2000s – and to some extent still is.

“Along with the most recent rise of feminism, we have also seen a rise in misogyny, epitomized by the likes of Andrew Tate, but clearly visible in all aspects of society, and certainly reflected in the British comedy circuit,” said Tomsett. “More and more action is being taken against it, but the idea that it is something that happened in the past and is no longer happening is frankly nonsense,” she added.

During the corona pandemic, Brand exchanged the television world for YouTube and started making increasingly extreme conspiracy films about, among other things, the war in Ukraine, corona and the climate crisis. It earned him a loyal group of millions of followers.

After the news of the accusations, he could also count on the support of Andrew Tate, the controversial media personality who is also accused of sex crimes. In a video on Twitter he says that Brand is now being treated the way he was. In doing so, he suggests that an attempt is being made to censor him.

The night before the allegations emerged, Brand posted a video on YouTube in which he denies the allegations and claims he is the victim of a “coordinated attack” aimed at silencing him. The chance that he will ever return to TV seems small, his live comedy tour is temporary postponed.