Russell Brand's UK career effectively ended after he was confronted as a "predator" in 2018, according to major British TV figure Richard Osman, speaking after Brand was convicted and sentenced for sex crimes.
Brand was found guilty on Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and one allegation of attempted indecent assault. The 51-year-old was sentenced on Monday to 10 years and six months in prison.
Osman points to 2018 turning point
On his Goalhanger podcast, The Rest is Entertainment, Osman said: "There came a point of reckoning in 2017, 2018 - forgive me if I can't give an absolutely specific date - when the industry understood that this was a person who had committed illegal acts."
"From that moment, he doesn't work in British TV. And from that moment, people in British TV start talking to journalists and you start that very, very, very long journey," he added. "You see the insanity of how long that journey has taken, he's got very, very good lawyers. The very nature of sexual crimes means they are very, very difficult to prove."
Katherine Ryan's earlier remarks
Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan previously claimed in a BBC TV documentary interview with Louis Theroux that there was a "predator" in the entertainment industry. In the 2022 interview, Ryan said she could not name the famous man as it would be a "litigious minefield" but mentioned that she had appeared on a TV programme with him and told him he was a "predator" to "his face".
She said: "I, in front of loads of people, in the format of the show, said to this person's face that they are a predator." Ryan reiterated that the allegations were "not my story to tell" as "no one has perpetrated any sexual assaults against me".
It was widely rumoured Ryan had been referring to her time on Comedy Central's Roast Battle in 2018 alongside Russell Brand, although she never confirmed she was referring to Brand, and she did not name the show she was working on. In 2022, Deadline reported that Brand was furious after Ryan allegedly called him a "sexual predator" repeatedly during filming for the first season of Roast Battle in 2018. He quit the show after six episodes and was replaced by Jonathan Ross, according to reports. The alleged remarks were not aired.
Open secret debate and reaction to verdict
Osman and his podcast co-presenter, former Guardian columnist Marina Hyde, pushed back on the idea that Brand's behaviour was an "open secret". They said "some people" knew but Brand's crimes were not common knowledge within the media or entertainment until the 2018 turning point. Osman said: "As a starting point on the idea that everyone knew, yes, everyone knew from 2017, 2018, and that's the point in which he did not work again, and that's when he scuttled off to America... And at that point, he knew that people knew because he was confronted about it by people in the industry."
Hyde added: "We can see that Katherine Ryan, at a certain point, made as clear as she possibly could within the legal bounds, made accusations."
Speaking about the guilty verdict on her podcast Telling Everybody Everything, Ryan said: "It really made me feel just quite dysregulated again, caught off-guard, emotional, in awe of the survivors who also had nothing to gain. They came forward despite Russell Brand having fame, power, money, and a legion of fans ready to attack them."
She added: "I will never be someone who like, dances on graves. There has been some justice done today. There's a level of relief, but there's grief alongside relief. Everything's nuanced, and it was proved in court that a terrible thing happened, and that means that a terrible thing happened. I just think again and again about people who have been hurt, and who have to carry that, who've carried that around long enough, and will continue to carry that in some way, regardless of what justice is done."
Ryan continued: "This verdict came because women were hurt, and I worry as well about what happens next. Because he's obviously spent a long time cultivating this idea that the establishment have invented these claims against him, and he's martyred himself to a growing audience who really still think that it is the courageous survivors who are the villains in this story."
