Russel Brand seems to have an situation

[Beebo]

Lovely photo from 2015

 

[briantrumpet]

On the minus side: from Dan Neidle

On the plus side: it's about Brand, and a lifelong injunction he managed to get against an accuser. Now that's looking decidedly dodgy, but the accuser still can't mention it to *anyone*.

https://skywriter.blue/@danneidle.bsky.social/3mzldxwgnto2c

From 2014:

 

[icowden]

I hadn't realised he only converted to Christianity 2 years ago. I'm going to be cynical here and wonder if he knew what was coming and thought it might be helpful.

Are you suggesting that he's some sort of vile chancer who would exploit religion to try and get away from multiple accusations of bad behaviour?

 

[Milzy]

 

[Psamathe]

Another aspect is how yet again what those in the industry are saying was widely known was ignored by the industry and abuse allowed to happen "in plain sight".

Yet another example where the media business has been putting celebrity, fame, etc. (and thus audience ratings) ahead of protecting those without the power/security. Seems an ongoing issue and I'd have hoped that the likes of "Sir Jimmy" would have been the watershed where the issues would have been addressed ... yet it continues.

 

[Milzy]

Another aspect is how yet again what those in the industry are saying was widely known was ignored by the industry and abuse allowed to happen "in plain sight".

Yet another example where the media business has been putting celebrity, fame, etc. (and thus audience ratings) ahead of protecting those without the power/security. Seems an ongoing issue and I'd have hoped that the likes of "Sir Jimmy" would have been the watershed where the issues would have been addressed ... yet it continues.

You may see that with more celebs soon. The last one to fall might be final boss cliff Richard because he’s too squeaky clean?

 

[First Aspect]

I think Brand will find Jesus in the shower block.

Personally I am close to the let him rot and get him out of the news stage. He's not worth any MORE attention is he?

Feel bad for current wife/family though. I do not think criticism of her support is fair. It is probably better to see her and her children as indirect victims of Brand's behaviour.

 

[Psamathe]

Feel bad for current wife/family though. I do not think criticism of her support is fair. It is probably better to see her and her children as indirect victims of Brand's behaviour.

When I raised the aspect of partners and their support it was not a criticism but more a question as to how long they maintain their support and how they balance the acts their partner has been found out over.

Whenever I see Ms Trǔmp hand in hand with her husband I wonder how she feels about husband paying off a porn star and no indication of regret, no remorse, no "I'm a reformed character", etc.

I can appreciate forgiveness if there is remorse, one-off error of judgement and genuine intent at reformed and learn from error.

 

[briantrumpet]

An interesting thread from a journalist:

https://skywriter.blue/@elliemaeohagan.bsky.social/3mzn5nglxzk2y

Ellie Mae O'HaganNovember 6, 2026 at 10:16 AM GMT

Let me tell you about Russell Brand, as someone who helped the journalists who eventually exposed him. In 2013/4, Brand started to become interested in progressive politics. He said progressive things publicly, went on Newsnight etc. At the time I was involved in progressive grassroots work myself. Brand started turning up at demonstrations (in a chauffer driven car, naturally) and asking to join meetings. In these arenas, a gender divide started to emerge: a lot of men were very excited about Brand's interest; women - like me - were more cautious about welcoming him in, given his history. This led to some blazing rows online and in real life.

At the time, I wasn't aware that he was a sex offender, I was just concerned about his sexism. But even that led the most egregious misogynistic abuse from my peers. I was jealous, I just needed a good shag, I wasn't a real journalist (lol) etc I got shouted down by men I had organised alongside for years. Not because I was accusing Brand of any particular crime, but because I was pointing to things he had said and done that were on the public record as evidence that he might have dodgy attitudes towards women, and we should be careful. I wrote this piece. Look at how measured and generous it is towards Brand! Cue more abuse from people I thought were friends and peers. But then something else happened... theguardian.com

Russell Brand's 'love of a good woman' is not what feminism needs | Ellie Mae O'Hagan
www.theguardian.com

Women (and a couple of men) started contacting me, telling they'd heard things about Brand. They told me stories in detail - sometimes naming victims. Some of these stories about Brand would be considered disgusting but legal behaviour, others were the most serious crimes. I tried to make the allegations public, but it was hard. Victims didn't want to come forward, amongst other barriers. Brand is highly litigious and once sued Suzanne Moore for criticising his prose style.

I was advised that accusing publicly him without evidence could jeopardise a future trial. I spoke to several journalists over the years, helping as much as I could. But kept falling apart for the same reasons - his victims were afraid, and his lawyers were aggressive. Nevertheless I warned as many people as I could without opening myself up to legal challenges or risking future justice. In 2016, Brand was invited to speak at a progressive event. I used a trusted intermediary to get a message to the organisers to warn them of the allegations and ask them to consider not platforming him. They said I had no evidence and platformed him anyway.

Over the years I became more outspoken out of frustration, more willing to tell people what I knew (without compromising identities). Even then I got shouted down, told it was all unsubstantiated rumours. Only when he started drifting into conspiracy did progressive men stop defending him. Then, a couple of years ago, the brilliant Rosamund Irwin messaged me. Like the brilliant Marge from Fargo, she was about to go on maternity leave. I remember her telling me "it's time." I told her everything I knew and gave her as many contact details as I could.

It says something about Brand and how hard it is to convict these kinds of men that not a single allegation I shared made it into the documentary or the court case. But after waiting a decade I can finally say publicly: Russell Brand is a rapist. I wish the survivors peace and happiness. Thank you to @davidwearing.bsky.social @trillingual.bsky.social and @okwonga.bsky.social for sticking their necks out and defending me when I was raising concerns about Brand. They just listened and believed me, and they got a lot of flack for it. Not all men! But too many men. Too many.

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

An interesting thread from a journalist:

https://skywriter.blue/@elliemaeohagan.bsky.social/3mzn5nglxzk2y

Yeah like i talked about with Aurorasaab a bit futher down in this threat he was actively and aggressively abusing the legal system to silence accusers.
There needs to be an better way for the legal system to handle complaints like this, now someone like this rapist just shouts "slander or Harrasment" and he gets a gag order (like show above on this page) (that one should be pulled too)

 

[Ian H]

 

[briantrumpet]

Another Bluesky perspective that resonates:

https://skywriter.blue/@smolrobots.bsky.social/3mzmyp7m6622r

Small Robots
November 6, 2026 at 8:47 AM GMT

Not sure how I feel about the narrative that Brand was some beloved cultural icon that we took into our hearts only for him to betray us. I think basically everyone always thought he was, at best, a self-gratification artist. The only people who really lionised him were the establishment. He wasn't some hugely popular figure at any point in his career and his continuing presence was mildly baffling given his Parklife-esque faux-cockney ramblings on panel shows and the like.

I'm not trying to claim any sort of virtue here by saying how I never liked him anyway (although I didn't, in fact, ever like him) but his popularity did seem rather imposed upon us from above, and now the public seem to be being implicitly blamed for having been foolish enough to adore him. I remember him starting out as a reporter for MTV Dance (iirc). Even then he was just some coked-up dickhead clearly coasting by on looks and long words. When he later showed up in more mainstream media, I couldn't quite believe he'd had even that degree of longevity.

His elevation to cultural ubiquity in the mid-00s certainly never seemed particularly organic. He wasn't an especially gifted comedian, writer, or actor. His supposed intellectualism was consistently ridiculed for the being the façade it was whenever he appeared on telly. If someone said they were a fan of his, it was always a massive red flag and everyone knew it. So let's not pretend the story here is of a snake in the grass. He was a snake draped across our neck in plain sight, hissing bullshit in our collective ear.

The scandal is not, "How did he hide his awful behaviour for so long?" It's, "Why was this visibly predatory man, who wasn't actually very talented or popular, constantly protected by figures in the media?" Not getting too much pushback on this, which is obviously partly to do with the kind of people who tend to follow me, but there is a bit of a reflexive assumption that he must have had actual fans, I/we just weren't part of that group.

My contention is...not really? When I say everyone thought he was a self-gratification artist, I'm being serious. Even people who enjoyed him showing up in farking everything for a bit tended to concede he was, fundamentally, a dickhead you wouldn't let near your teenage daughters. Like, there's a reason this Onion article from a few years ago works: theonion.com

Nation Could Have Sworn Russell Brand Was Already Convicted Sex Offender
theonion.com

To clarify, my point here isn't, "he sucked so we should have known he was a wrong'un and more fool you if you didn't" it's that there is some revisionist history going on about why Brand was such a part of our lives for so long and therefore who bears responsibility for insulating him with fame. The world is unfortunately full of popular figures who did commendable work and used their positions to abuse vulnerable people who trusted them because of their status. I don't think Brand falls into that category. I don't think we have to wring our hands about separating the art from the artist.

And he never really pretended he was anything but what he was, in fairness. It was all out there in the open. It's just the story being told about him seems at odds with my experience of having watched him inexplicably ascend and precipitously descend in real time. *We* didn't let this happen. *We* didn't demand he be put on telly. He might have fooled *you* but he didn't fool *us*. I'm not congratulating myself for guessing he was a predator: I'm saying no one is particularly surprised and no one feels betrayed by it. If you'd told me in 2006 that he'd be convicted of rape and sexual assault in 2026, the only thing that would surprise me about it is that it took 20 years to happen. I'd ask if he'd fled to Argentina or something.

And again, that's not some special insight I possessed or a way of boasting about never having liked him. I think that was genuinely the popular consensus about him! We didn't "know", but we certainly wouldn't have been shocked to find out. I deliberately used the term "self-gratification artist" in the first post, because it's important to appreciate that being a self-gratification artist like that wasn't considered a drawback in the UK media environment of the 00s. Quite the reverse in fact. People loved self-gratification artists.

The point is he didn't fark off or change like the rest of the self-gratification artists who were bizarrely popular then. I'm not saying everyone thought he was a Bad Person. I'm saying everyone thought he was a bellend. A knob. A twerp. A wally. Insufferable, if intermittently entertaining. At the time one of my best friends at uni was a bit like Brand, and I'd have said much the same of him. "Yeah, I get on all right with him but he is a self-gratification artist, fair play."

 

[Beebo]

Oh dear. Watch with caution.

I suspect i was probably laughing along to this back on 2007 When i was in my early 30s.


View: https://youtu.be/t6kDIMEtJao?si=cogqoa_pnNJJn3YK

 

[briantrumpet]

Oh dear. Watch with caution.

I suspect i was probably laughing along to this back on 2007 When i was in my early 30s.


View: https://youtu.be/t6kDIMEtJao?si=cogqoa_pnNJJn3YK

When people say "It's political correctness gone mad!", they should be shown stuff like this and be asked whether 1) It was OK at the time, and 2) Would it be OK now still. At least that gives them the benefit of being able to accept that attitudes have changed have changed for the better. Just imagine being a victim of rape and seeing this kind of 'banter'.

 

[Pross]

Oh dear. Watch with caution.

I suspect i was probably laughing along to this back on 2007 When i was in my early 30s.


View: https://youtu.be/t6kDIMEtJao?si=cogqoa_pnNJJn3YK

There was another clip yesterday of him on Jonathan Ross where he was asked about his promiscuity and whether he takes precautions and responded with something like "yes, I take precautions. I check they're definitely female and then I go for it". Ross has had some fairly unsavoury friends over the years. Hopefully for him he didn't get involved in their antics (I've never heard anything to suggest he did and I think he just liked associating with 'edgy' types that he found amusing - definitely has questionable tastes though).