Russell Brand has been convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, bringing a dramatic downfall for the former comedian and actor who long traded on an extreme public persona. The verdict, delivered by a jury at Southwark crown court, also included not-guilty verdicts on two counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault.
The trial was the culmination of a three-year inquiry by the Metropolitan police, launched in September 2023, two days after Brand was accused of rape, sexual assault and controlling and emotionally abusive behaviour by five women in a joint investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches and the Times newspapers.
Early warning signs in memoir
Brand's own memoir, published long before his arrest, contained anecdotes that now serve as harbingers of his treatment of women. In the early 1990s, as a student at the Italia Conti theatre school, he followed a classmate for 200 miles, trailing her through London before sneaking, ticketless, on to her train to Wigan. He admitted she did not want him to accompany her, but he got into bed with her, where he "lied and danced and evoked the spirit of Pan till she reluctantly removed her bra" before deploying "tears and emotional blackmail to secure the immolation of her knickers".
The book, which also described how Brand spat in the face of a lap dancer and smashed the phone of a sex worker against a wall, was not condemned at the time. It reached No 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list and won biography of the year at the 2008 British Book Awards.
Career built on shocking behaviour
By the time the book was published in late 2007, Brand was a household name, propelled into the mainstream by a brief relationship with the model Kate Moss and a stint presenting Channel 4's Big Brother's Big Mouth. He was labelled "shagger of the year" three times in a row by the Sun newspaper and enjoyed a rock-star-like status that led to a sellout standup tour and a show on BBC Radio 2.
Audiences laughed as he stripped on air and told jokes about watching women choking during oral sex. Few questions were asked about why his management had enrolled him in a rehabilitation clinic in Philadelphia, regularly used as an alternative to jail for convicted sex offenders. As part of his sex addiction treatment, Brand said he was asked to compile a "victims' list" of women he had "wronged", and he complained he felt like Saddam Hussein "trying to pick out individual Kurds".
From Sachsgate to Hollywood
In October 2008, Brand and his guest Jonathan Ross left a series of voicemail messages for the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, boasting of how Brand had slept with Sachs's granddaughter. The messages were broadcast in full, drew condemnation from the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, and led to the BBC being fined £150,000 by Ofcom after tens of thousands of complaints.
Some remain astonished that Brand was able to keep his job for as long as he did. The former BBC executive Lorraine Heggessey described him as "a predator, live on air on Radio 2". He regularly made sexual comments about the programme's newsreader, and in one episode joked about exposing his penis to a woman in a toilet at a BBC studio. When he secured an interview with one celebrity, he offered to send his female assistant to the man, naked, as a token of appreciation. That celebrity was Jimmy Savile.
Return to UK and new audience
After Sachsgate, Brand relocated to Hollywood, winning leading roles in Get Him to the Greek and the remake of Arthur. He met his first wife, Katy Perry, but their marriage ended in divorce after 14 months. Perry later recalled: "He didn't like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful, and it was very controlling, which was upsetting."
When Brand returned to the UK in 2013, he was embraced as a serious social commentator, writing columns for the Guardian and appearing on Question Time. He rekindled his relationship with Laura Gallacher, whom he married in 2017. After the #MeToo movement spread, TV executives started to distance themselves from him, and by the time of the Covid pandemic he had all but disappeared from the mainstream.
From his home in Buckinghamshire, Brand cultivated a new audience by discussing conspiracy theories on his podcast, amplifying misinformation about Covid vaccines and the war against Ukraine. When the allegations emerged, he claimed he was the victim of a coordinated attack by the mainstream media because he was getting "too close to the truth". In April 2024, he was christened in the River Thames by Bear Grylls, and he later moved with his family to Florida before returning to the UK voluntarily to face trial.
After the jury delivered their verdict, Brand held his head high and appeared emotionless as he was led away by dock officers down to the cells. The judge said he would inevitably face a significant custodial sentence. For some of Brand's victims, there may be comfort in the fact he will, at long last, be punished after hiding in plain sight for decades, though they will be entitled to question why a sex offender who became a millionaire by playing his abuse of women for laughs evaded justice for so long.
