- I like to be sucked in when it presses against their neck.
Russell Brand is 31 years old, has hazel eyes with the top of his hair tufted like a halo around his head. For three minutes, he has airbrushed on stage and now he illustrates a "good" blowjob, through gurgling, suffocating sounds.
- The mascara should sort of run, he says.
The joke can be seen in a grainy video that shows bits of Russell Brand's stand-up show "Shame" from 2006. At that time, he is on his way to the peak of his career, the host jobs and the acting roles replace each other and he is the poster name for the hedonistic spirit that went by the name "indie sleaze".
Two decades later, in the fall of 2026, he stands accused of several cases of rape and sexual assault. On Monday, October 12, he will appear in court in London, and the trial is expected to last two months. He denies all the charges.
In his 20s, Essex-born Russell Brand takes his first steps as a comedian and quickly gains attention for his boundless jokes.
Among other things, he leads the MTV Video music awards, has his own talk show "The Russell Brand show" and works as an actor in films such as "Dumpad" and "St Trinians". He often jokes about his past drug addiction and how much sex he has, how horny he is. In the radio and television programs he hosts, the jokes are often about the female guest or his female co-workers. The behavior leads, among other things, to him being named "Shagger of the year" by the tabloid The Sun three years in a row.
In 2010, Russell Brand and pop star Katy Perry get married at a luxury resort in India. The pair become something of a popular cultural phenomenon. However, the marriage is short-lived and on New Year's Eve 2011, Russell Brand files for divorce. Even before the divorce, he had begun to explore his spiritual side and got involved politically, to the left. Occasionally he writes political columns in The Guardian and in 2013 he published his book "Revolution", in which he points his boots against capitalism and writes a kind of manifesto about the importance of meditation.
But a few years later, he changes political direction and moves more to the right. In his own social channels, he publishes videos where he discusses, among other things, what he calls "mainstream media".
In connection with the corona pandemic, Russell Brand is also spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories to its audience of millions. The world scenes and prime time have long since been replaced by events organized by, among others, Charlie Kirk's conservative organization Turning Point USA and the vaccine-skeptic movement Make America healthy again.
As recently as this year, he also published a new book on conservative Tucker Carlson's start-up publishing house Skyhorse. The book, "How to become a Christian in seven days", is about Brand's Christian salvation.
In early autumn 2023, the British television channel Channel 4 publishes a documentary together with The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers, "Russell Brand. In plain sight". Already a few days earlier, Russell Brand tried to preempt the review by posting a video on his YouTube channel, where he says that he has taken part in "aggressive and stupid attacks" from a television company and a newspaper. Without going into details, the comedian denies what he is accused of.
In the documentary, four anonymous women testify about how Brand has sexually assaulted them in various ways, and in some cases raped them. The events must have occurred between the years 2006 and 2013. One of the women says that she was 16 years old when she began a relationship with the then 30-year-old Brand. She likens his behavior to "grooming".
The documentary lands like a bombshell in the media houses, but also with the British police, who begin to investigate the events and at the same time urge the public to report Russell Brand if anyone felt taken advantage of by him.
After almost two years, Russell Brand is charged with two counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault. The rapes are said to have occurred between 1999 and 2005. One is said to have taken place in a hotel room after a theater event, the other during a party when he allegedly forced a female employee into a men's toilet.
In May 2025, Russell Brand is heard for the first time in court during a twelve-minute interrogation where he denies any crime and is then granted bail. The trial is then planned to be held in June 2026, but soon he will be charged again for one case of sexual assault and one case of rape. In February this year, he appeared in court again - and denied.
The court, Sothwark Crown Court in London, has decided to try all seven charges at the same time when the trial begins on Monday, October 12. Russell Brand has consistently denied the allegations and maintained that there was consensual relationships. He has previously said in a statement that he was a fool when young, but never a rapist.
Several media outlets have launched various efforts to cover the eight-week trial. Media have also begun to investigate the comedian culture that prevailed in the early 2000s and also question how Brand's behavior and jokes were normalized.
Read more:
Sandra Stiskalo: Russell Brand wildly whines that he was consensually promiscuous
Amat Levin: Russell Brand is no threat to the establishment
