What are the allegations against Russell Brand? | Ents & Arts News

The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches published their joint investigation on Saturday, accusing Russell Brand of rape, sexual assault and abuse.

Four women alleged that Brand assaulted them between 2006 and 2013.

This period marks the height of Brand’s fame – he was a presenter for the BBC and Channel 4 before becoming a high-profile Hollywood star.

The comedian vehemently denied “very serious criminal allegations” in a YouTube video on Friday night, claiming his relationship was “always consensual”.

Here are the charges against him in full.

Warning: This article contains graphic details that readers may find disturbing

“Grooming and sexual assault on a 16-year-old”

Alice – not her real name – alleged that she had a sexual relationship with Brand when she was just 16 and that he had sexually assaulted her.

Brand, who was 30 at the time, sent cars to Alice’s school to pick her up from class so they could have sex at his home, she said.

He became increasingly controlling during the relationship, Alice said, encouraging her to lie to family and friends about the relationship, even instructing her to hide his number under the name “Carly” to avoid suspicion. She says that Brand’s management also asked him to keep their relationship private.

She also alleged that he removed a condom during sex without her knowledge.

“Russell engaged in the behavior of a groomer looking back, but I didn’t even know what it was at the time or what it looked like,” she said.

While in bed with Brand, Alice says the comedian forced his penis into her mouth to the point she was unable to breathe.

“I pushed him away and he didn’t pull away at all,” she said.

“I ended up having to punch him really hard in the stomach to get him off. I was crying and he said, ‘Oh, I just wanted to see your mascara run anyway’.”

He then held her mouth open, salivated into it and then held her mouth, forcing her to swallow his saliva, leaving her “gagging and crying”.

Alice also told the inquest that Brand found it arousing that she was a virgin, called her “the baby” and “my little doll” and asked her to read the 1955 novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov about a professor who was sexually obsessed with girls who was before puberty. .

‘Raping a businesswoman in LA’

Nadia, who did not use her real name to protect her identity, said Brand raped her in his LA home in 2012.

They previously had sex, but Nadia said he had a “smooth over” appearance during the encounter.

In the early hours of July 1, 2012, Brand pleaded with her to visit his house.

When she got there, he asked her to join him and a “friend” for a threesome in his bedroom, she alleged.

When she refused, Nadia said Brand pushed her against a wall and raped her without using a condom.

After fleeing her house, she said Brand texted her at 03.29, who said: “I’m sorry. It was crazy and selfish. I hope you can forgive me, I know you’re a lovely person. X.”

She said she ignored a call from him but texted him the following morning to say he had “scared her”, adding: “When a girl says NO, it means no.”

Brand responded that he was “very sorry” and “embarrassed” by his behavior, The Times reported.

Nadia provided the team of reporters with her medical records from a rape treatment center she attended after the rape, as well as therapy records.

Several months later, she said she wrote to Brand and said, “You totally broke me.”

Brand ‘fired woman who worked for him after sexual assault’

Phoebe — not her real name — had a brief fling with Brand after they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 2013, she said.

He later hired her for a project they were working on together.

During this time, Phoebe said she was “trapped” in a bedroom in Brand’s home and he began chasing her around the room.

Brand, who was naked, “grabbed me and got me on the bed” and tried to forcibly remove her clothes.

She said: “I was screaming and I was like, ‘What are you doing, stop, please, you’re my friend, I love you, don’t do this, I don’t want to do this’. I think he had his hands down my pants but I was fighting so hard and I was screaming so hard hoping that I could somehow get through.”

When the assault ended, Phoebe said Brand got “super angry” and yelled “f*** you” and told her she was fired.

She ran out of his house barefoot and ran into a group of people outside who had arrived for a business meeting, Phoebe said.

One of the people in the group apologized to Phoebe years later, she claimed.

She said: “He pulled me aside and he said to me, ‘I’ve never forgiven myself for not running into that house to save you. I heard you scream. And I didn’t know what to do . And we were all so afraid of him, and I didn’t do anything. And I’m sorry’.”

Phoebe continued to work with Brand, but she said he “cornered her” and threatened legal action when he discovered she had told friends about the alleged assault.

‘Sexually assaulted ex-boyfriend’

Brand’s ex-girlfriend Jordan Martin did not give an account to the reporters working on the investigation due to “personal family matters,” but confirmed to the team that she stood by claims she made in a self-published book.

The former model had a six-month relationship with Brand in 2007.

In her book, she described an alleged sexual assault at The Lowry Hotel in Manchester between Dina and Randall Grand – pseudonyms she used for herself and Brand.

Mrs Martin said the comedian became angry when he found out she had been talking to an ex-boyfriend.

He then grabbed her phone and assaulted her in the bathroom, slipping his hand into her underwear, she claimed.

She said she was “not ready for this intrusion” and did not find it “sensual or pleasurable”.

Brand also forced her to brush her teeth so hard it made her gums bleed so she would taste “anonymous” to him, Ms Martin said.

She wrote that Brand “pushes boundaries and controls other people to fulfill personal perversions for the sake of dominance”.

“There were times when I felt bullied and abused, not in a physical or sexual way, but mentally. I was vulnerable… His manipulative side was so powerful that it was easier to just submit.”

Brand never disputed Ms. Martin’s account in her book.

‘Offered naked assistant to Jimmy Savile’

Dispatches and The Sunday Times also detailed other disturbing behavior in the documentary – including inappropriate comments about pedophile Jimmy Savile.

On his radio show in 2007, Brand spoke to Savile, who said they could meet if Brand brought his sister.

The comedian said he didn’t have a sister, but offered to bring his assistant naked to the meeting.

“I’ve got a personal assistant and part of her job description is that anyone I require her to greet, meet, massage, she has to do it. She’s very attractive, Jimmy,” Brand is quoted as saying.

Savile died in 2011 aged 84.

More than 450 allegations of child sexual abuse were reported to the police after his death.

Read more:
Brand denies allegations
Comedian tells fans at concert there are ‘things he can’t discuss’
From drug addict to star often at the center of controversy

‘Blinking junior staff’

Brand’s personal assistant between 2006 and 2007 also alleged that he showed friends intimate images of women.

Brand also directed the assistant, Helen Berger, to procure women for him to have sex with from the audience of shows he presented, she claimed.

She also said Brand often wore nothing but underwear around him and had a “very active sex addiction”.

Meanwhile, a production runner on Big Brother’s Efourum said Brand flashed her on set and insinuated she “might like to suck his d***”.

She added: “I was incredibly shocked. I didn’t want to tell anyone what he had done because I didn’t want to lose my job.”

She later had sex with him, but he insisted she keep it a secret.

“As an older woman, I can say with certainty that I felt like I was groomed for sex,” the runner said.

“Production companies enabled him to exist in environments where he was able to take advantage of who he was.”

Another crew member said she made a separate complaint to a colleague about Brand’s sexual harassment of audience members at his shows.

The crew member said women often called her in tears “because they felt used”.

“I don’t know what happened when they left the studio,” they added.

She said it felt like she was a “pimp to Russell Brand’s needs” and that they were “taking lambs to the slaughter”.

Brand rejects claims ‘absolutely’

Brand denied the claims in a video posted online ahead of the publication of the claims, saying he faced a “litany of extremely violent and aggressive attacks”.

The 48-year-old said: “These claims relate to when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in films and which I have written a lot about in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.

“Now in that era of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual. I was always transparent about it then, almost too transparent, and I’m transparent about it now.

“To see transparency metastasize into something criminal, which I absolutely deny, makes me question – is there another agenda at play?”

TV production and distribution group Banijay, the French multinational that bought the company that made Big Brother in the 2000s, issued a statement which it later amended.

In the second statement, it said: “In light of the very serious allegations raised by Dispatches and The Times/Sunday Times investigation into Russell Brand’s alleged serious misconduct while presenting shows produced by Endemol in 2004 and 2005, Banijay UK has launched a urgent internal investigation and will cooperate with any requests for information from broadcast partners and outside agencies.

“We also encourage anyone who feels they were affected by Brand’s conduct while working on these productions to contact us in confidence.”

Channel 4, which broadcast Big Brother, said that in the years since the alleged incidents, there had been “extensive changes” at the channel and it now has a “zero tolerance approach to unacceptable behavior and has a robust code of conduct”. it said.