What are the allegations against Russell Brand?
RUSSELL Brand has been accused of a string of sexual offences and abuse by four women.
A new report by The Times has uncovered allegations of rape, sexual assault and bullying – here’s everything you need to know about the claims.
What has Brand been accused of?
Four women have spoken up with claims that Brand assaulted them between 2006 and 2013.
The first claims to have been raped by the comedian against a wall at his home in Los Angeles.
She also alleges that she went to a rape crisis center the same day before texting Brand to tell him that “when a girl [says] no it means no”.
According to his accuser, Brand apologised in response.
The second woman alleges that Brand had an abusive relationship with her for three months when she was just 16.
It comes after:
- Brand released a video slamming the claims against him as ‘untrue’
- Kirsty Gallacher shared the clip in support of her brother-in-law
- Brand’s wife Laura Gallacher appears to have deleted her Instagram
- Controversial internet personality Andrew Tate showed his support for Brand on social media
She claims that the then-31-year-old groomed her and then sexually assaulted her, forcing her to punch him in the stomach to make him stop.
The third woman claims that Brand sexually assaulted her while they worked together in LA and threatened legal action if she spoke out.
Finally, the fourth woman also claims that he sexually assault her, as well as accusing him of physical and emotional abuse.
What has Russell Brand said?
Before the allegations were published, Brand released a YouTube video in which he strongly denied the claims, without specifying what they were.
He explained that he had been contacted by a major newspaper, now known to be the Times, and a TV broadcaster, now known to be Channel 4, who will run a Dispatches programme on the subject tonight at 9pm.
The 48-year-old slammed the accusations as “untrue” and said that they were part of a “coordinated media attack” against him for “attacking mainstream media narratives”.
He added that he “completely refutes” the reports and claimed that all of his relationships were “always consensual”.
The video seemingly received the backing of his sister-in-law Kirsty Gallacher, who shared the clip to her own social media, though this has now been deleted.
Brand was also backed by controversial influencer Andrew Tate, who called the allegations against him “crazy”.
However, Brand’s wife Laura has not commented on the reports and has seemingly deleted her Instagram page.
Russell Brand's video transcript in full
Hello there, you awakening wonders.
Now 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.
I have received two extremely disturbing letters – well a letter and an email.
One from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper, listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks as well as some pretty stupid stuff – like my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn’t be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel.
But amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque, attacks are some 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 have 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 then, almost too transparent. And I’m being transparent about it now as well.
And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question is there another agenda at play?
Particularly when we have 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.
I’m aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while ‘Watch out Russell, they are coming for you, you are 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 is 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 been 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 stand up to talk about my promiscuous consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very very serious criminal allegations.
Also it’s worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct apparently in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack
Now I don’t want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I’m being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together
We are obviously going to look into this matter because 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.