A woman who says she was raped by Russell Brand has told a court she was "appalled" when he was rehired as a star presenter by MTV a few years after the alleged attack.
Brand, now 51, is accused of grinning "like a clown" as he groped the woman's breasts in the middle of a Soho bar, before allegedly dragging her into a toilet to rape her. The woman, who was working for MTV at the time of the incident in 2004, said she told a producer friend a few days later about the incident, calling Brand "a sexual predator".
Woman's reaction to Brand's return to MTV
The woman told police she was "absolutely appalled" when MTV rehired Brand in around 2006 as a presenter. "Anytime he was in the building, I just refused to go over, or to any parties," she said. "If I knew where he was, I would just avoid. I did see him in the distance a couple of times. He probably wouldn't even recognise me, I'm just a face."
Brand's rise to fame began at MTV, before he switched to presenting Channel 4 shows in the 2000s and ultimately became a Hollywood star.
Alleged incident at Soho bar
Brand denies three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault, and insists that all his sexual encounters were consensual. He is accused of groping the woman's breasts after talking to her at the party at Nordic Bar in Soho for less than a minute, then dragging her to a toilet where it is alleged he forced her into oral sex.
The woman, in her recorded police interview which was played to Southwark Crown Court on Monday, said she told an MTV producer that Brand had tried to orally rape her a few days after the bar incident. "I just said he tried to sexually assault me," she said, adding that her friend replied: "Oh my god I can't believe that."
Decision to come forward
Recounting the conversation, she said: "I was just like 'Well I'm just telling you, in case you are a friend of his, but he's a sexual predator'. I don't know from that point whether they remained friends or what relationship they had."
The woman said she decided not to go to police at the time, thinking it would be "my word against his" and that "it was those laddish culture times". She told police she had been excited to meet Brand at the party, having seen him on TV on Big Brother spin-off shows, and liking his humour. But she says she was left feeling "numb" and "ashamed" after Brand groped her and then raped her in a flooded toilet cubicle. She claims Brand acted "like nothing had happened" as he left the toilet after the attack.
In the aftermath, she told a friend that Brand "tried to do it", but she did not want to say that he had "succeeded" in raping her. She said: "I wanted to change the narrative so I wasn't a victim in my head. I didn't want to admit it to myself… so I sort of reinvented it a bit so I didn't have to… I didn't want people to judge me. I felt ashamed."
She added that she decided to come forward to police almost 20 years later after seeing allegations made by other women about Brand in a 2023 documentary. She said she wanted to "help support all these other women that have been brave enough to come forward". She added: "There's this voice inside me going 'you've got to say, you've got to say'."
Brand denies all the charges, and is set to argue that sexual encounters have been "reimagined" in recent years. The trial continues.
