Maia Venuti
Staff Writer
The Sunday Times recently published an article about British actor and comedian Russell Brand, accusing him of rape and sexual assault. Four women have come forward alleging assaults between 2006 and 2013, with one of the victims being as young as 16 at the time of the assault.
The Sunday Times did a joint investigation with “Dispatches,” a British investigative show, that made a companion episode titled “Russell Brand: In Plain Sight” to go along with the article.
Brand’s popularity was at its peak in the mid 2000s and early 2010s, and it was during this time that he allegedly began perpetrating these crimes. One of the women that Brand began a relationship with at the age of 31 was a schoolgirl, known in the article as “Alice” who was just 16 at the time that they met in 2006, according to the article.
According to The Sunday Times report, he would refer to Alice as “the child” and knew her age when they went on their first date, stating: “I don’t give a f*** if you’re 12…I need to know where I stand legally.” He would call Alice “[his] little dolly,” encouraged her to read Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial book “Lolita,” told her specific lies to use on her parents and friends and isolated her. The Times reported that the three month relationship culminated in Brand assaulting her until she had to try to forcibly get him away from her.
The second woman who came forward is known in the article as “Nadia,” and they met in Los Angeles in 2012 at Brand’s home. After meeting once prior, Nadia went to his house a second time where Brand said he wanted her to have sex with him and his friend, to which she declined, leading to Brand allegedly raping her.
There are text messages exchanged between Brand and Nadia in which Brand apologizes for what happened. Despite Nadia receiving medical attention and submitting evidence at a crisis center that same day, she did not report Brand to the authorities out of fear of retaliation.
Brand’s third victim, going under the name “Phoebe,” met Brand in Alcoholics Anonymous when she was in her early twenties. They had a brief relationship that ended prior to the time of the alleged attack in 2013. At the time, Phoebe was working with a team on a project with Brand at his West Hollywood home when he attacked her and ignored her pleas for him to stop.
Eventually he did stop, but he became angry and immediately fired Phoebe from the project. Brand allegedly threatened her with legal action if she came forward with her story, so Phoebe stayed silent out of fear.
24 hours prior to the release of The Sunday Times article and the Dispatchers episode, Brand released a video on his YouTube channel titled “So, This Is Happening.” Brand has amassed a decent following on YouTube by talking about conspiracy theories and for “debunking” the news with his own alternative facts.
In this two-minute-and-46 second video, Brand said that he is aware that two major media outlets are going to be publishing pieces on him with allegations that he “absolutely refute[s].” Brand continues to explain that when working in the mainstream media, it was a “time of promiscuity,” but swears his relationships were always consensual.
After this however, the video shifts into him questioning if there is an alternative agenda at play, referencing Joe Rogan’s ivermectin scandal. He states he feels there is a “serious and concerted agenda to control these kinds of spaces and these kinds of voices.”
Towards the end of this video, he says he thinks it is worth mentioning that he knows witnesses who have evidence directly contradicting what is alleged by The Sunday Times and Dispatchers. However, Brand does not elaborate further on this point, saying he “doesn’t want to get into it any further.”
It is still unclear just how big of a situation this will come to be, but it does not seem like it will be slowing down or going away any time soon. The story is still new, so there is not much known about what his victims want to do from here or if legal recourse will be taken.
