British actor and comedian Russell Brand has been accused by four women of sexual assault, rape and emotional abuse, among other things. The British newspapers reveal this The Times, The Sunday Times and TV program Channel 4 Dispatches Saturday based on a large-scale investigation. Brand denies all allegations and says all his relationships have been consensual.
The abuse is alleged to have taken place between 2006 and 2013, during the peak of his career. One of the women says she was sixteen years old at the time of the abuse. Brand is said to have, among other things, forcibly pushed his genitals down her throat, causing her to be unable to breathe. Another woman says she was raped at his Los Angeles home when she refused to sleep with him and another woman.
Brand has also been accused of physical and emotional violence by several women. Brand worked as a presenter at BBC Radio 2 and Channel 4 and appeared in several Hollywood films at the time these events are said to have taken place.
Preconceived strategy
Brand was given eight days by the Times to respond to the allegations. However, his lawyers indicated that they did not want to respond because, according to them, the newspapers had sent a “litany of aggressive accusations” and because the names of the women were partly not released. According to the lawyers, there is a premeditated strategy with the aim of causing damage to Brand.
On Saturday afternoon – a few hours before the article was published – Brand himself posted a video on X and YouTube in which he denies all allegations. The actor also says he suspects that there is a “very disturbing agenda behind all of this.”
Shortly after his breakthrough in early 2000, Brand struggled with a serious drug addiction. After his recovery, he struggled with a sex addiction, for which he was treated in the United States in 2005. In his video, Brand emphasizes that he has always been open about his past and his “time of promiscuity”, but that his (sexual) relationships during this period were always consensual.