Brand has denied all the allegations
Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse, a report suggested on Saturday.
Five women have shared their stories with Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4 Dispatches. The alleged incidents are said to have taken place between 2006 and 2013. During this time Brand was a presenter on BBC Radio 2 and Channel 4 and starred in several Hollywood films.
The Times and Dispatches have spent a year looking into Brand’s “treatment of women”.
Brand on Friday denied all of the accusations against him.
A Promotional clip from Channel 4 includes an interview with a woman who claims: “He’s grabbing at my… my underwear, pulling it to the side. I’m telling him to get off me and he won’t get off me.” Later she says: “I was like, ‘Oh my God, he raped me.”
Another woman in the clip alleges: “He grabbed me and got me on the bed. I was fully clothed, and he was naked at this point. And he held me down and he was aggressively trying to (beeped out) me.”
Another woman in the promo clip says: “He forced his penis down my throat and I couldn’t breath. He was just choking me. I was crying and he said, ‘Oh, I only wanted to see your mascara run.”
The promo clip then cuts to a clip of Brand during a comedy show where he talks about “them blowjobs whee the mascara runs a little bit”, then tells the crowd, after making a gagging sound, “good.”
The Mirror reported that that woman accused Brand, then 31, of assaulting her when she was 16 and still at school. The alleged victim claims he often referred to her as “the child” during their emotionally abusive relationship which lasted three months. She later claimed to The Sunday Times that Russell “forced his penis down her throat”, which made her choke.
The clip says that reporters have spoken to five women, four of whom asked to remain anonymous. Their voices and identifying features “have been changed to protect their anonymity. In some cases actors have been used,” the promo explains.
Another woman these appears in the promo, saying that she has never spoken about Brand before, adding that “Russell seems untouchable.”
Brand told Channel 4: “These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time…. when I was in the movies and, as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very promiscuous.
“Now during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual, I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent, and I am being transparent about it now as well, and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, that I absolutely deny, makes me question if another agenda is at play?
“What I seriously refute are these very serious criminal allegations… There are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are truing to construct, apparently in what seems to be a coordinated attack.
The Dispatches Special Report is due to air at 9pm.
On Friday night, Brand issued a video statement denying unspecified “criminal allegations” set to be published against him, much of which was similar to what he told The Times and Dispatches.
The 48-year-old comedian released a video on YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, explaining that had received an “extremely disturbing” letter and email from a TV company and newspaper which listed a “litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks”.
In the two minute and 45 second video, Brand denied the allegations.
In Brand’s video, he began by telling his followers that this “isn’t the usual type of video we make on this channel where we critique, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption because in this story, I am the news.”
He explained that he has received a letter, or letters, and an email, from a mainstream media TV company and a newspaper listing “a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel”.
Brand went on to say some of the allegations contained in the correspondence were “very serious”: “Amidst this litany of astonishing rather baroque attacks, often very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
“These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies. And as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that.”
Brand went on to question if there was a wider agenda to the reporting, saying that he had been “almost too transparent” about his behaviour: “And to see that transparency metastasised into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play?
“Particularly when we’ve seen coordinated media attacks before, like with Joe Rogan, when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn’t approve of, and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world using the same language. ”
Brand added: “I’m aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, watch out, Russell. They’re coming from you. You’re getting too close to the truth. Russell Brand did not kill himself. I know that a year ago there was a spate of articles.
“Russell Brand’s a conspiracy theorist, Russell Brand’s right wing. I’m aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know for ages and ages. It’s being clear to me, or at least it feels to me like there’s a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices. And I mean, my voice along with your voice. I don’t mind them using my books and my standout to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past.”
Ending his video, Brand made clear that he seriously refuted “these very, very serious criminal allegations.”
“Also, it’s worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narrative that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently, in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack,” Brand said.
“Now, I don’t wanna get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I’m being attacked and plainly they’re working very closely together. We are obviously going to look into this matter ’cause it’s very, very serious. In the meantime, I want you to stay close, stay awake, but more important than any of that, if you can, please stay free.”
Brand’s wife Laura’s Instagram profile has been deleted after the comedian denied the allegations made against him. The 36-year-old writer’s profile on the social media platform with the username thejoyjournal is no longer available on Instagram.
Brand has hosted a number of radio and TV programmes for networks including Channel 4, MTV, Radio X and the BBC, having started his career as a stand-up comedian in the early 2000s.
His big break came hosting Big Brother’s Big Mouth on E4. He then went on star in Hollywood films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek and Arthur.
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