Channel 4 aired a documentary called Russell Brand: In Plain Sight, a 90-minute catalogue of allegations against the comedian turned influencer, including rape, sexual assault and abusive, controlling and predatory behaviour.
Four women spoke on the record, retaining their right to anonymity. One woman explained that, as a 16-year-old teenager in 2006, she began a relationship with 30-year-old Brand, who became controlling and abusive over the course of three months.
Another women detailed allegations of being attacked in 2012 by Brand at his home in LA, while a third claimed she was sexually assualted by the comedian, also in LA, in 2013. A fourth told the programme Brand had allegedly exposed himself to her during his time working at Channel 4 in the early 2000s.
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The documentary also revisited the book published by Brand’s former girlfriend, Jordan Martin, who wrote a book detailing an alleged assault by him. Martin told the documentary she didn’t wish to take part, but stood by her account.
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Channel 4 said at the start of the programme that the Dispatches team had been investigating the comedian since 2019, including speaking to hundreds of people working in comedy, showbusiness and the film industry.
The documentary was aired on the same day as the Times of London published its own expose into the comedian’s treatment of women. The paper has been working with the Sunday Times and Channel 4.
Brand has rejected all allegations against him, saying in a video he published on Friday that, while he had been promiscuous during this period in his life, all his relationships had been consensual. He said in the video that the allegations were all part of a coordinated attack by mainstream media to bring him down, due to his huge fanbase and influential position in counter-culture.
At the same time as the documentary was being aired on British television, Brand was on stage at London’s Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, where he performed in front of thousands at a long-arranged sold-out gig. The comedian was greeted by cheers with one woman holding a sign saying, “We stand by you Russell. Stay strong. Stay Free. We love you.”
Brand told the audience: “I really appreciate your support. I love you. I want to do a fantastic show. I’ve got a lot of things I want to talk to you about. There are obviously some things I absolutely cannot talk about – and I appreciate that you will understand.”
Its only a question of when he will go to prison.
No smoke without fire…and that is a lot of smoke.
the documentary uses actors to portray the story?! that is very iffy
I expect more to come forward. I’m willing to give Russell the presumption of innocence, but a disturbing pattern of allegations has emerged.
he literally admitted to sleeping with a 16 year old girl when he was 31…that is straight up rape. When he is admitting to things, there is no presumption of innocence, he is admitting guilt.
It’s straight up not rape, legally speaking. The age of consent in the UK is 16.
So which is it? Innocent until proven guilty or not? Because you just insinuated that the allegations are NOT a trick from mainstream media but instead are “disturbing” (so valid) You can’t have it both ways.
So sexual assault allegations can’t be disturbing unless they’re validated as fact? These ARE disturbing allegations, regardless all allegations must be proven with evidence in a court of law. I’ve yet to see evidence that what these ladies are saying is anything but accusations. Should this go to court and it does turn out to be true however, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Right at a time when he’s more popular than ever for criticizing government overreach.
This is the same Russell Brand who urged his followers NOT to vote the Tories out of power in the last general election and who markets himself directly to the conspiracy theorist wing of both the Tory government’s voters and Putin and Donald Trump’s fanbase.
And yet the detailed allegations come both from a TV channel often regarded as left wing and anti-government (so much so Boris Johnson tried to sell it off to the private sector as punishment) and a Rupert Murdoch owned government supporting paper: when two such idealogically and politically opposed news outlets team up on an expensive four year investigation it’s more likely an issue of alleged criminality than political activism that’s under the microscope. It’s also curious that Brand only leaned into his very lucrative tilt to court the far right conspiracy theorists who don’t care about the alleged or proven criminality of their ‘saviors’ regardless of evbidence around the time the investigation began…
Hahaha for crying out loud. The government, any government, couldn’t care less about obnoxious Russell brand. Get out of the basement and turn off alex Jones. Watch the documentary. The dude clearly crossed the line.
Thank you
There’s literally footage of him pulling down his trousers and sitting on a woman’s lap on live TV, footage of him groping a female journalist on TV, audio of his radio show where he ‘joked’ about wanting to have sex with the newsreader by barging into her studio and forcing her, and then mocked her when he heard she’d complained about him, and audio of him interviewing Jimmy Savile and offering to send his assistant to him and saying she’ll do whatever he tells her to do.
All of this was laughed off as “that’s just Russell.”
He showed us who he was, but nothing was done about it.
No need for presumption of innocence, because he’s not.
Wrong. Just plain wrong.