A woman accusing Russell Brand of rape has told Southwark Crown Court she did not consent to anal sex and felt she was treated "like an animal" during the alleged assault.
The 51-year-old comedian and actor denies seven charges, including three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one charge of indecent assault, relating to six different women.
Alleged assault at Hampstead townhouse
Giving evidence on Wednesday, the woman said she willingly engaged in a threesome with Brand backstage at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009, despite having a boyfriend at the time, and later agreed to have sex with him at his £2.3 million Hampstead townhouse.
She alleges Brand forced her into anal sex without warning at the end of a consensual but "awkward" sexual encounter.
"I haven't painted myself in a very good light," she told the court. "I had just met Russell Brand at the Hammersmith Apollo, I did have a partner I really loved, and I made a huge mistake."
Cross-examination over consent
Brand's barrister, Ian Winter KC, highlighted that the woman was a "massive fan" of Brand at the time and suggested she had gone to his home knowing they would have "transactional" sex.
She replied: "I didn't think I was going to be his girlfriend."
Mr Winter pressed on: "In a way you went along with what he wanted because you were impressionable and obsessed with him," before suggesting the woman had "agreed to" the anal sex.
She replied: "I didn't agree to do it."
The court heard the woman has spoken to friends, family, and a journalist in the years since her interactions with Brand, and she has also battled alcoholism.
In her police interview, she repeatedly said she had consented to the Apollo sexual encounter and had willingly gone to Brand's house for sex, but insisted she never agreed to anal sex.
Text exchange after the alleged rape
The woman told the court she encountered Brand at the Edinburgh Festival after the alleged rape, and in a text exchange she told him: "I think you've pushed me far enough, you treated me like an animal."
She says Brand replied "I'm sorry" immediately afterwards, and she told the jury: "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."
Mr Winter, presenting Brand's case that she had consented to the whole sexual encounter, told the woman: "He had pushed you and probably had treated you like an animal, but he didn't rape you."
The woman replied: "I didn't consent."
She added: "I carried that feeling of guilt and shame and I felt lots of things but particularly for exactly the reason that you are doing right here that I brought it on myself. That just because you go somewhere willingly and the outcome in the end is not consensual, it's a different scenario."
Context of the era
Earlier in the cross-examination, Mr Winter pointed out that Brand was named "shagger of the year" three years running by The Sun newspaper.
He said Brand's Apollo show was "crammed largely with young women", adding: "On occasions, women were actually throwing their bras at him and lifting their shirts to show their naked breasts at him."
The woman agreed the tone of Brand's show, including stand-up material about "the previously unspoken nature" of sex, would not now be tolerated.
"Things have changed between those times and now," he said. "In terms of that sort of attitude towards women, things have fundamentally changed now."
The trial continues.
