An investigation by the Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches has accused Russell Brand of rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse, which he strenuously denies

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2414370

An investigation by the Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches has accused Russell Brand of rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse, which he strenuously denies

Comedian Russell Brand had to have a ‘no sex’ clause written into his contract when he landed the Big Brother spin off show presenting job, it has been claimed in Channel 4’s Dispatches programme.

The 48-year-old, who has starred in Hollywood films, been a stand-up and is now a Youtube star, is accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse, allegations which he has vehemently denied. Dispatches claims to have spoken to women who have been assaulted or emotionally abused by the Arthur actor.

While the show was being aired, Brand was performing in front of a crowd of 2,000 fans at the Troubador Theatre, Wembley, the first time he has been seen since the allegations were first made by Dispatches, the Sunday Times and The Times. He told the crowd: “I really appreciate your support. I love you. I want to do a fantastic show for you. I’ve got a lot of things to talk to you about. There are obviously some things that I absolutely can not talk about - and I appreciate that you will understand.”

It comes less than 24 hours after Brand took to his own Youtube channel to address the claims in a statement last two minutes and 45 seconds. Brand said: "I’ve received two extremely disturbing letters or 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 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, often 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’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.”

One of the women interviewed as part of the Dispatches documentary claims Brand had a ‘no sex’ clause written into his contract, which she says he told her about after they had slept together when he is said to have urged her to keep it a secret. She said: "One of the memories which is very vivid is I must’ve gone to see what he wanted for lunch, he saw it was me and turned around. I wasn’t close to him but I saw he had his penis out of his shorts.

“I was scared to rock the boat, I felt very anxious, I was scared of what the repurcussions would be. I wasn’t going to tell anyone what he’d done because I didn’t want to lose hey job. His flirations grew stronger with me, I wss flattered, I was sucked Ito his world, He was a very intoxicating person.”

Brand’s colleague met up with him and they had sex for the first time and it was then that she claims he told her she “couldn’t tell anyone else on the crew, it had to be a complete secret. He had it written into his contact he wasn’t allowed to have any sexual contact with anyone working on Big Brother.” In Brand’s own autobiography, he admits his agent had to sign a contract saying the star would be no trouble."

If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999.

  • Captain Howdy@lemm.ee
    91·
    1 year ago

    I could never put my finger on it, but this guy always came off as creepy and kind of pervy to me. I was not all all surprised to read these recent headlines.

    • idiomaddict@feddit.de
      3·
      1 year ago

      I remember him posting a picture of Katy perry either asleep or just having woken up, with the caption something like “even if she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, eventually she gets boring” and I just haven’t been able to tolerate him since

  • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    84·
    1 year ago

    Still waiting to hear the story of rape. So far all this post has documented is:

    1. Exposing himself to a coworker.
    2. Breaking the terms of his contract and then asking a coworker to keep it a secret.

    Those are bad, and from the description it sounds like she may be due an apology (as is common for recovering addicts to do), but it is worth keeping in mind that she describes the flirting and sex as consensual, even though he crossed the line a bit also.

    Russell is tough for me because I have always enjoyed his performances, but he falls into that trap that a lot of interviewers do where they echo their guests opinions as fact, and then when they get flack for it, they double down and assume there must be some deeper truth behind it.

    I’m holding off on defending or damning with this one until we have more of the story, but the one thing for sure is that Russell needs to start being a lot more careful, a lot more honest, and a lot less defensive.

    • Misanthrope@lemmy.ml
      4·
      1 year ago

      Here’s the full write up from The Sunday Times. We can’t judge from a single post. But the post is of an article citing the ST article.

      Just read the original article or watch the show if you want more info.

      https://archive.ph/9X8W7

  • Ejh3k@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I honestly thought he’d already been canceled do to rape claims before. I thought that was why I hadn’t heard his name in years, and as an American that watches a bunch of British panel shows its a surprise.

  • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
    760·
    1 year ago

    We have come full circle and society will revert to Victorian mores. Soon, chaperones for dates will come back into fashion.

      • Omega@lemmy.world
        54·
        1 year ago

        Wait, I thought they were complaining about all the rape. Are they complaining that victims are too prudish?

        • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
          113·
          1 year ago

          Good question! It seems that their comment would only work as an exasperated remark if the level of rape/sexual assault/general disregard for women was higher now than it was when chaperoning and Victorian mores were prevalent, which it is not.
          So we can fairly assume, unless the commenter chooses to clarify, that they were expressing annoyance at the relatively new phenomenon of women being able to retrospectively point the finger at their aggressors.
          A lot of that judgement is based on seeing patterns in the arguments of conservatives and my own parsing of the comment, so it might be wrong and I’m willing to be corrected. It’s a genuinely interesting question, because without my experience of the cesspools of the internet which has caused a (reasonable) bias in my thinking, I don’t think I would have come to that conclusion. I hope we do hear more from the commenter and can see what exactly they meant.

          Either way, Russell Brand is a diseased penis.

          Edit: oh dear, down voted within 30 seconds of posting this very thoughtful reply! Whatever could that mean?

    • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
      104·
      1 year ago

      No, you’re right. We absolutely need to move forward and progress, especially if that means pseudo-intellectuals have free rein to rape whomever they want, whenever they want. In fact, Jordan Peterson should probably be allowed to genocide anyone with unnatural hair colour, or people who chose their own pronouns!!! Otherwise it’s just basically the dark ages all over again, right?