Russell Brand is a British media personality who started out as a standup comedian before branching out into other fields. In 2023, an investigation by various British media outlets revealed a pattern of abusive behavior dating back to 2006. The reports resulted in more women coming forward with new allegations of a disgusting nature.
Brand has denied all of the allegations and promoted conspiracy theories regarding them. He has since been charged with multiple counts of rape, oral rape, indecent assault, and sexual assault, and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 2 May 2025 for his first hearing. In addition, on 7 April 2025, news outlets reported Brand to be the subject of a civil action case filed in New York state, accusing him of sexual assault whilst intoxicated, during filming of Arthur in 2010.
While he once used to espouse progressive causes, around 2021 or so his views shifted and he became more involved with American rightwing causes. Since the allegations of abuse have become public, he now claims to have found Jesus and was publicly baptized in the river Thames, and now claims that he is a victim of a conspiracy. He has become MAGA-adjacent and of course they have embraced him.
A collaboration between The Times, The Sunday Times, and Channel 4, conducted over years, produced exhaustively documented allegations of rape and other sexual abuses. They spoke with hundreds of sources, including four accusers. They collected medical records, texts, emails, and internal documents from employers, all showing a pattern of alleged sexual abuse that is often frightening in its violence. The report came out in September 2023. Shortly thereafter, Brand was kicked off YouTube. He then swiftly joined the MAGA-affiliated Rumble network. In the next few months, he moved to the U.S. and got baptized, fully rebranding himself as a right-wing Christian influencer.
…The accusations have been surfacing since 2006, when Australian singer Dannii Minogue first spoke out about Brand being a “vile predator.” The big Times exposé came out in late 2023, but Brand didn’t “find faith” until the spring of 2024. Not like any of the other excuses for Brand make sense. The MAGA followers talk a lot about how “they” are doing this to Brand, but it’s forever unclear who “they” are. The journalists? Police? Four alleged victims? Hundreds of witnesses? Crown prosecutors? But MAGA would rather believe that hundreds of “they” are conspiring to take down a has-been comedian than accept the likelier explanation: Brand found Jesus just in time to get a new income stream and source of attention and validation, one he would have never settled for when he still had access to mainstream audiences.
Religion professor Bradley Onishi, host of the “Spirit and Power” podcast, pointed out to Salon that there is “a long history of the evangelical subculture and the conservative Christian subcultures wanting to find mainstream legitimacy” by grabbing onto any celebrities they can claim are one of them. In the 90s and early 2000s, Onishi noted, evangelicals hyped everyone from U2 and Creed to Jessica Simpson and Katy Perry as “crossover Christian figures” who could sell the larger world on the idea that Christianity is hip and cool.
Brand, however, represents a disturbing twist to this saga: the willingness, in the era of Donald Trump, of right-wing Christians to scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel to get this validation.
The phrase ‘Jesus saves’ is familiar to anyone who has been involved in any way with Christianity. It means that if one is truly repentant and acknowledges one’s wrongdoing, and turns to Jesus and asks for forgiveness, one can be absolved from one’s sins and start a new life with a clean slate, at least in God’s eyes, if not legally. But in right-wing Christian circles, especially when it comes to celebrities, the acknowledgment of wrongdoing and the repentance parts have been jettisoned and now all that is required is for one to simply declare that one is a Christian. It has become a way of enabling people who have been accused of awful behavior to escape the consequences of their actions and gain new careers and affirmation within that group.
I’ll just let The Onion summarize my feelings here:
https://theonion.com/nation-could-have-sworn-russell-brand-was-already-convi-1850849838/
Anyone with eyes could see through Brand pretty much from the moment he became reasonably famous. My theory of why he managed to stay ahead of the accusations against him for so long was that people who would have been in a position to do something about him -- promoters, other comedians, producers, directors, casting agents and so on (and it should go without saying that I mean specifically men in these positions) -- were all, on some level, awed and jealous of him.
They’d deny it, of course, but most men can relate to meeting that one bloke who appears not to even need to try -- he just walks into a bar or a party, and women fall over themselves to be around him. My late cousin was magnetic like that, as is my best friend from school. Neither of them used this charisma to become predators, however.
Brand obviously did, but I think the tendency of the other men around him to wish they had what he had (and remember, we’re talking here about people who are by definition pretty near the top of their respective trees, people like Jonathan Ross for instance) meant they didn’t react as they might have done if he was just some ordinary schmoe. It’s not the same kind of power dynamic that protected Weinstein for so long -- nobody male feared Brand or thought he could end their career per se.
An important lesson I’m trying to think of a way to teach to my boys is spotting this kind of behaviour and calling it out for what it is. (Again, it goes without saying that the lesson not to be the kind of guy to do it has already started). Women can’t stop this kind of shit going on, and it’s questionable whether even the vast, overwhelming majority of men who don’t do this shit can stop others doing it, but it’s past time for us to start trying. Men are better placed than women to protect women from people like this, but first we have to stop being impressed by it. (It would be nice if women stopped being impressed by it too, btw, but I can’t affect that.)
@ ^
Meh. I’m sceptical of this hypothesis of a link between charisma and ability to fly under the radar. Other abusers -- Trump, Rolf Harris, Savile -- weren’t exactly Mr Hottie were they.
Our esteemed host’s allusion to the famous Samuel Johnson quote reminds me of Ambrose Bierce’s still-applicable rejoinder 130 years later:
sonofrojblake @#2
That fits from what I saw over the years. I also think that there is a particular kind of affection in which we hold people who can make us really laugh, the kind of laughter that releases the tensions we are all under, that lets them get away with things other people wouldn’t. A lot of the time that license is simply used in their comedy, used to skirt the edges of propriety or point up the absurdities of life or skewer politicians and so on. However it can give some right slugs the power to abuse, and to get away with that abuse because, as you say, too many men are jealous of what the slugs get away with perhaps hoping if they hang out with the slug they’ll get some too.
Silentbob @#3
So you think there is one single kind of man that abuses women? And also that someone has to be good looking to be charismatic?
@Jazzlet, 5:
Ah, I can see the mistake you’ve made right there.