A woman has told a court that Russell Brand treated her “like a piece of meat” when he allegedly raped her at his London townhouse, and that he later told her at the Edinburgh Festival: “I want to push you further.”
Brand, now 51, is accused of raping the woman in 2009 after meeting her at one of his stand-up comedy performances at the Hammersmith Apollo. Her video-recorded police interview was played to Southwark Crown Court.
The woman, who was in her early 20s at the time, told the Metropolitan Police she was a fan of the comedian and willingly engaged in a threesome backstage at the gig. A few days later she agreed to meet Brand at his £2.3 million home in Hampstead Village knowing they would have sex.
Allegation of anal sex without consent
In her interview, the woman alleged the consensual sexual encounter turned to rape when Brand forced her into anal sex. She said she was struggling to breathe and repeatedly told Brand: “Can you stop, can you stop, can you stop?”
She said Brand “looked horrified” afterwards, but while she thought he was going to apologise he instead told her to “clear up the mess that you’ve made”. She recalled Brand then putting Quantum Leap on the TV as she was left to clean up with wipes and black toilet paper.
She said: “He put the TV on, he took a phone call, and I would say within five – not long – he left the room.” The woman said she then left the home, and was told by Brand’s driver “he’s on in Hammersmith tonight and he needs to get ready”.
‘You treated me like an animal’
The woman said the experience left her feeling “degraded”, and months later she told Brand he had made her feel “like a piece of meat”. She said she came across Brand at the Edinburgh Festival after the alleged rape, and then received a “random” text from the comedian.
She said she challenged Brand: “Why are you even messaging me?” She claims he responded by saying: “Because you are dirty and I want to push you further.”
She told police the message upset her, and in a later exchange she said she told Brand: “I think you’ve pushed me far enough. You treated me like an animal.” The woman claims Brand then replied to say: “I’m sorry.”
She said: “His response was horrible – the second one, I feel how I felt at his house was that I felt completely degraded and like I’d been treated like an animal, like a piece of meat.”
Details of the Hampstead townhouse
The court has heard details of Brand’s Victorian townhouse, which the woman said had “quite a gothic feel”, with black, white, and grey décor, a stag’s skull mounted on the wall of the living room, and a black-framed full-length mirror in the bedroom.
The police officer asked: “Anything distinctive about the bed?” The woman replied: “No, just that it was huge.”
She said Brand forced her to shower when his driver dropped her off at his home, suggesting her mousse-filled hair smelled “funny”, and he also insisted she brush her teeth. The woman said: “He told me to brush my teeth. We went into the bedroom and went on the bed. We kissed and started having normal penetrative sex after some foreplay.”
Asked how she felt during the consensual sex, the woman replied: “I don’t think I enjoyed it, not because I didn’t feel I had consented to it. I felt really uncomfortable, and from having to take the shower, to brush (my teeth)… I didn’t feel the way he had made it sound in the messages.”
Denials and defence
Giving her account to police, the woman said she was a fan of Brand before going to see him at the Apollo, and she claims he picked her out in the foyer to join him backstage afterwards. Jurors have heard the woman engaged in a consensual threesome with Brand and another woman backstage, and then gave the comedian her number.
Brand denies three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one allegation of indecent assault, after being accused by six different women. He is set to argue in his defence that sexual encounters from his past have now been “reimagined”, and they were all consensual.
The trial continues.
