Russell Brand: rape and sexual abuse allegations, grifting and general dodginess - discussion

[Kid_Eternity]

Result.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

yeah, basically Brand, like Johnson, would tell you up was down if he thought it would make him rich and famous.

He was already rich and famous. There has to be a reason why someone goes from Holllywood to internet grifter.

 

[Pickman's model]

YouTube have put out a statement:



I’m not sure how simply demonetising the channels achieves this as opposed to removing all his content and banning him from the platform.

It's a halfway house to where they want to be as the natural next move for brand is to use his yt channel to slag yt off for turning off the money tap at which point boom he's gone

 

[Kid_Eternity]

He was already rich and famous. There has to be a reason why someone goes from Holllywood to internet grifter.

Attention and more money. It’s not rocket science it’s just greed.

 

[Pickman's model]

He was already rich and famous. There has to be a reason why someone goes from Holllywood to internet grifter.

It's easier than actually working

 

[Kid_Eternity]

It's easier than actually working

His ‘mainstream’ career was already on the fast downward slide which is when he suddenly discovered he didn’t like it…

 

[ouirdeaux]

Don't you need at least two people in order to form a conspiracy? Brand deciding by himself to pursue the tinfoil crowd as a means of cover might be argued to be implausible, but I'd hardly call it a conspiracy unless the term is robbed of its actual meaning.

Technically, you're right, but the salient point for me is that both conspiracy theorists and someone who believes that Brand had been deliberately planning this carefully are assuming a sequence of events that may be theoretically possible, but intrinsically implausible.

Although the idea that Brand did plan it all is less implausible than that the moon landing never took place, or that the planes crashing into the Twin Towers weren't really what brought the structures down.

 

[editor]

Posted on FB by Sam Gore (it's long but worth the read)

I see you, Russell Brand.

Tell you what. Before we even start, here’s a conspiracy theory for you. The comedy industry, with its long history of struggling to hold its sleazier elements accountable, starts its first tentative steps towards a vaguely unionised approach just a few short years back.

As a network of self-employed freelancers lacking any kind of centralised HR department we’ve never had a proper reporting framework for sexual misconduct. There was the whisper network and the rumour mill - through which you have been absolutely churning for the sixteen years I’ve been performing - and that was literally it.

MeToo saw more people speaking out against the promoters, comics and powerful industry figures making them uncomfortable. Get Off! Live Comedy was set up to report and challenge sexual harassment, the charge led by women who were justifiably sick of it. At the same time, you were a man far too intelligent and narcissistic to be utterly unaware of the many, many things being said about you. Suddenly you start moving away from the relentlessly bawdry sexual material and begin steering hard into the anti-establishment rhetoric you’d previously only superficially dabbled with.

Mainstream media was to be distrusted, the elites are lying to you, I’m the only one telling the truth. On paper, a fairly predictable career turn and reinvention for the self-styled libertine with a god complex. One that soon proved to be incredibly lucrative.

Then, when the hammer now comes down on you, you suddenly have a readily-cultivated audience of new followers willing to disregard any evidence presented to them by the ‘mainstream media.’ In fact, they’ll probably happily take on The Man by chipping into your legal fund. Particularly if you get ahead of the allegations and pretty much insist that the establishment are now co-ordinating their efforts to take you down.

Weirdly convenient, isn’t it?

Am I insisting the two are definitely connected? No, because I’ll leave the drawing of conclusions based on incomplete data and potential coincidence to the professional grifters on Rumble. I just think it’s a slightly more believable possibility than the idea that Anthony Fauci is suddenly working with Rupert Murdoch and Channel 4 in order to somehow discredit you. I know you’ve always had a pretty high opinion of yourself but I somehow doubt Big Pharma are all-knowing enough to have preempted your switch to alternative media guru.

Did they set up the rape crisis centre that poor woman has now proven she attended after encountering you, even though it happened long before you ever started calling them out?

Did they put fake cabbies on the streets seventeen years ago to warn the teenagers being driven to your house, not for the sake of their own personal safety but in defence of their future profit margins?
What’s the timeline here, Russell?

Just how deep does the rabbit hole go, that the deep state were even whispering in my ear in the Loft Bar in the Gilded Balloon in the late Noughties? Who were the shadowy figures, still posing to this day as my colleagues, who warned me to keep an eye on my female friends around you should we ever cross paths?

Now I’m not suggesting that rumour and innuendo are the same as definitive criminal guilt - of course they aren’t. I’m just pointing out that it’s utterly spurious to claim these accusations, the like of which anyone who works in comedy knows have hung over you for years, are suddenly being manufactured by dark forces. They massively pre-date your reinvention as an anti-corporate, anti-establishment, anti-New World Order soothsayer.

You lost countless jobs because you couldn’t behave appropriately. Your fundamental disrespect for boundaries and authority has always extended right out into other people’s voicemail inboxes and personal space. It’s frankly baffling that you can now pretend that the suggestion anyone could possibly have objected to it at the time somehow appals you.

That you claim allyship to so many vulnerable groups rings unbelievably hollow when you now rush to prime your fans to defend you against a conspiracy of women who insist that your ‘consensual’ sexual encounters with them were anything but.

And good Lord, do we need to stop pretending that “innocent until proven guilty!” is an unassailable pedestal of a moral position. It seems absolutely fundamental on paper but in reality it's a statement that's in no way above and beyond contamination by the dreadful nuances that victims of sexual assault have to navigate each and every day. Of course we don’t convict people by social media witch-hunt but there’s a world of difference between baseless Twitter speculation and properly researched and effective journalism. Not that it stops the excuses or the blind deference some are now displaying to their anti-establishment hero.

All of that now feeds into the already mountainous culture of silence that for many has become an unassailable obstacle to reporting what happened to them.
There are myriad reasons why victims may prefer to go to the press over the police; from the more sympathetic ear and approach, to the less intimidating and official process, to the fact the media actually have the resources to investigate allegation and rumour thoroughly without overstepping their legal bounds. There are myriad reasons why victims are unable to even process, let alone vocalise, the things that have happened to them for years - or even decades - after their abuse physically took place. There are myriad reasons more why proper and effective journalism has traditionally both supported and enabled proper criminal investigations and convictions.

There’s a good chance you’re about to find that out, Russell Brand. I’m not calling you guilty and you’re entitled to your day in court, should it ever come to that. But I will not pretend, with everything I’ve heard, that I’m in any way surprised by this. Narcissists with the all-consuming assumption that every woman worships them mistake compliance for consent all the time, with the worst of them overstepping boundaries in the most appalling and egregious of ways.

Nor will I entertain the ludicrous suggestion that this ‘conspiracy’ extends anywhere beyond the women who have an absolute right to now tell their stories about you in any way they see fit. If you genuinely believe this is a corporate set-up perpetrated by the establishment, you have more than enough resources to challenge all this by suing everyone involved.

With all the potential disclosure that goes along with that process. If the sixteen year old you reportedly dated as a 31 year old man is nothing but a grotesque fabrication, surely you’ve got nothing to fear coming out under litigation?
Surely even you believe that free speech has some limits, if this is nothing but a baseless corporate smear campaign against you?

I guess we’ll find out.
I see you, Russell Brand. I fucking see you.

 

[editor]

 

[cupid_stunt]

Posted on FB by Sam Gore (it's long but worth the read)

I see you, Russell Brand.

Tell you what. Before we even start, here’s a conspiracy theory for you. The comedy industry, with its long history of struggling to hold its sleazier elements accountable, starts its first tentative steps towards a vaguely unionised approach just a few short years back.

As a network of self-employed freelancers lacking any kind of centralised HR department we’ve never had a proper reporting framework for sexual misconduct. There was the whisper network and the rumour mill - through which you have been absolutely churning for the sixteen years I’ve been performing - and that was literally it.

MeToo saw more people speaking out against the promoters, comics and powerful industry figures making them uncomfortable. Get Off! Live Comedy was set up to report and challenge sexual harassment, the charge led by women who were justifiably sick of it. At the same time, you were a man far too intelligent and narcissistic to be utterly unaware of the many, many things being said about you. Suddenly you start moving away from the relentlessly bawdry sexual material and begin steering hard into the anti-establishment rhetoric you’d previously only superficially dabbled with.

Mainstream media was to be distrusted, the elites are lying to you, I’m the only one telling the truth. On paper, a fairly predictable career turn and reinvention for the self-styled libertine with a god complex. One that soon proved to be incredibly lucrative.

Then, when the hammer now comes down on you, you suddenly have a readily-cultivated audience of new followers willing to disregard any evidence presented to them by the ‘mainstream media.’ In fact, they’ll probably happily take on The Man by chipping into your legal fund. Particularly if you get ahead of the allegations and pretty much insist that the establishment are now co-ordinating their efforts to take you down.

Weirdly convenient, isn’t it?

Am I insisting the two are definitely connected? No, because I’ll leave the drawing of conclusions based on incomplete data and potential coincidence to the professional grifters on Rumble. I just think it’s a slightly more believable possibility than the idea that Anthony Fauci is suddenly working with Rupert Murdoch and Channel 4 in order to somehow discredit you. I know you’ve always had a pretty high opinion of yourself but I somehow doubt Big Pharma are all-knowing enough to have preempted your switch to alternative media guru.

Did they set up the rape crisis centre that poor woman has now proven she attended after encountering you, even though it happened long before you ever started calling them out?

Did they put fake cabbies on the streets seventeen years ago to warn the teenagers being driven to your house, not for the sake of their own personal safety but in defence of their future profit margins?
What’s the timeline here, Russell?

Just how deep does the rabbit hole go, that the deep state were even whispering in my ear in the Loft Bar in the Gilded Balloon in the late Noughties? Who were the shadowy figures, still posing to this day as my colleagues, who warned me to keep an eye on my female friends around you should we ever cross paths?

Now I’m not suggesting that rumour and innuendo are the same as definitive criminal guilt - of course they aren’t. I’m just pointing out that it’s utterly spurious to claim these accusations, the like of which anyone who works in comedy knows have hung over you for years, are suddenly being manufactured by dark forces. They massively pre-date your reinvention as an anti-corporate, anti-establishment, anti-New World Order soothsayer.

You lost countless jobs because you couldn’t behave appropriately. Your fundamental disrespect for boundaries and authority has always extended right out into other people’s voicemail inboxes and personal space. It’s frankly baffling that you can now pretend that the suggestion anyone could possibly have objected to it at the time somehow appals you.

That you claim allyship to so many vulnerable groups rings unbelievably hollow when you now rush to prime your fans to defend you against a conspiracy of women who insist that your ‘consensual’ sexual encounters with them were anything but.

And good Lord, do we need to stop pretending that “innocent until proven guilty!” is an unassailable pedestal of a moral position. It seems absolutely fundamental on paper but in reality it's a statement that's in no way above and beyond contamination by the dreadful nuances that victims of sexual assault have to navigate each and every day. Of course we don’t convict people by social media witch-hunt but there’s a world of difference between baseless Twitter speculation and properly researched and effective journalism. Not that it stops the excuses or the blind deference some are now displaying to their anti-establishment hero.

All of that now feeds into the already mountainous culture of silence that for many has become an unassailable obstacle to reporting what happened to them.
There are myriad reasons why victims may prefer to go to the press over the police; from the more sympathetic ear and approach, to the less intimidating and official process, to the fact the media actually have the resources to investigate allegation and rumour thoroughly without overstepping their legal bounds. There are myriad reasons why victims are unable to even process, let alone vocalise, the things that have happened to them for years - or even decades - after their abuse physically took place. There are myriad reasons more why proper and effective journalism has traditionally both supported and enabled proper criminal investigations and convictions.

There’s a good chance you’re about to find that out, Russell Brand. I’m not calling you guilty and you’re entitled to your day in court, should it ever come to that. But I will not pretend, with everything I’ve heard, that I’m in any way surprised by this. Narcissists with the all-consuming assumption that every woman worships them mistake compliance for consent all the time, with the worst of them overstepping boundaries in the most appalling and egregious of ways.

Nor will I entertain the ludicrous suggestion that this ‘conspiracy’ extends anywhere beyond the women who have an absolute right to now tell their stories about you in any way they see fit. If you genuinely believe this is a corporate set-up perpetrated by the establishment, you have more than enough resources to challenge all this by suing everyone involved.

With all the potential disclosure that goes along with that process. If the sixteen year old you reportedly dated as a 31 year old man is nothing but a grotesque fabrication, surely you’ve got nothing to fear coming out under litigation?
Surely even you believe that free speech has some limits, if this is nothing but a baseless corporate smear campaign against you?

I guess we’ll find out.
I see you, Russell Brand. I fucking see you.

Similar claims about his behavior being common knowledge has been made by Katherine Ryan.

Katherine Ryan accused Russell Brand of being a 'sexual predator' on a popular TV show, according to reports. The Canadian comedian, 40, appeared alongside the My Booky Wook star, 48, on Comedy Central's Roast Battle in 2008 when Brand was a judge. The father-of-two, who has been accused of rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse – which he strongly denies – was only on the show for a season after Katherine allegedly roasted him on-camera about allegations he sexually assaulted women, which he denied.

The Roast Battle encouraged comedians to trade insults with each other and including Brand, Ryan, Jimmy Carr and Jonathan Ross for the first season. Ross replaced Brand for the second season after he was allegedly asked to step down as a judge. During filming of the show – created by production company Fulwell 73 – Katherine is said to have made allegations against the Get Him to the Greek star, but her comments weren't included in the edit.

Ryan's confrontations allegedly revealed how comedians in the industry were openly talking about Brand's sexual and predatory behaviour. Brand was said to be 'absolutely furious' after being 'targeted' by Katherine on the show, a source told Deadline. The Mirror has contacted reps for Katherine. Fullwell 73 was not available to comment.

Two other sources claimed Brand demanded producers protect him from being accused about the serious allegations. Industry insiders have now revealed they felt it best the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star leave his role as a judge on the programme, and that 'in the end, it came down to that fact the comic didn’t have a good sense of humour'. The show appears to be one of the Brand's final appearances on UK TV screens – except for the Great British Celebrity Bake Off, which took place in the same year.

A clip of Katherine saying she confronted an unnamed male comedian, who she dubbed a "sexual predator" has resurfaced in the wake of Channel 4's Dispatches documentary, which was made in conjunction with The Times and The Sunday Times.

Katherine made the claims during an interview with BBC documentary maker Louis Theroux in November 2022. Although she has never named the "unmentionable British personality" for legal reasons, The Duchess star claimed it was an "open secret" amongst people working in her industry. She stressed that she was not a victim of sexual assault herself – saying it was "not my story to tell" – but believed accusations from sources she described as "very credible". The 40-year-old added that while she didn’t inform the person’s employers of their alleged behaviour, she told the man repeatedly "to his face" during filming for a TV show, but the clip was later cut from the recording. However, it is not clear who the celebrity is and Katherine did not disclose their identity.

Katherine Ryan 'accused Russell Brand of being a sexual predator' on comedy show

Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse during a seven-year period – which he strongly denies – in Channel 4's Dispatches documentary

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[NoXion]

Result.

Link is non-functional, at least for me.

Technically, you're right, but the salient point for me is that both conspiracy theorists and someone who believes that Brand had been deliberately planning this carefully are assuming a sequence of events that may be theoretically possible, but intrinsically implausible.

Although the idea that Brand did plan it all is less implausible than that the moon landing never took place, or that the planes crashing into the Twin Towers weren't really what brought the structures down.

My opinion is that he largely stumbled into his current situation rather than masterminding it from the start, I just think it's a bit much to entirely dismiss the possibility that people are actually capable of planning things.

 

[danny la rouge]

Link is non-functional, at least for me.

Me too.

 

[belboid]

I think it has been posted else where anyway, but the link is YouTube suspends Russell Brand from advert income

 

[SpookyFrank]

He was already rich and famous. There has to be a reason why someone goes from Holllywood to internet grifter.

Although it's hard to imagine this even being a possibility in Brand's case, there are fewer editorial and behavioural constraints if you're a freelance gobshite than a mainstream broadcaster.

Also I think most of the general public had had enough of him. He was massively overexposed, appearing in films despite not being an actor etc. He probably just ran out of offers because he wasn't bankable enough.

 

[cupid_stunt]

My opinion is that he largely stumbled into his current situation rather than masterminding it from the start, I just think it's a bit much to entirely dismiss the possibility that people are actually capable of planning things.

I admit I was rather dismissive of the idea he planned ahead for this situation happening, and disappeared down the rabbit hole to provide him with some protection. but this from the editor's post #728 above, concerning the 'Get Off! Live Comedy' being set-up, and now I am not so sure TBH.

MeToo saw more people speaking out against the promoters, comics and powerful industry figures making them uncomfortable. Get Off! Live Comedy was set up to report and challenge sexual harassment, the charge led by women who were justifiably sick of it. At the same time, you were a man far too intelligent and narcissistic to be utterly unaware of the many, many things being said about you. Suddenly you start moving away from the relentlessly bawdry sexual material and begin steering hard into the anti-establishment rhetoric you’d previously only superficially dabbled with.

Mainstream media was to be distrusted, the elites are lying to you, I’m the only one telling the truth. On paper, a fairly predictable career turn and reinvention for the self-styled libertine with a god complex. One that soon proved to be incredibly lucrative.

Then, when the hammer now comes down on you, you suddenly have a readily-cultivated audience of new followers willing to disregard any evidence presented to them by the ‘mainstream media.’ In fact, they’ll probably happily take on The Man by chipping into your legal fund. Particularly if you get ahead of the allegations and pretty much insist that the establishment are now co-ordinating their efforts to take you down.

Weirdly convenient, isn’t it?

 

[MickiQ]

Similar claims about his behavior being common knowledge has been made by Katherine Ryan.

Loads of fucking mention of what he's been in are they trying to boost sales or something. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, (I've seen it but happily forgotten it until now cos it's a bit shit), Get Him To The Greek (also shit). The only thing I've seen him that I enjoyed was the remake of Arthur.

 

[pesh]

YouTube said in a statement: 'If a creator's off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand.'

'If a creator wants to abuse someone, please first ensure they don't have a youtube account'

 

[tim]

Am still amazed that a sexual predator became the US president and will probably do so again.

I can't see why you would be surprised, as Trump was hardly the first predatory pervert in the Oval Office. Had you forgotten Bill Clinton, Kennedy, and Thomas Jefferson who raped and impregnated a child who was his wife's enslaved sister?

I'm sure there were others, too.

 

[existentialist]

It is tricky to come to a thread like this and say "<name of public figure>, never rated him much", but there was always something about Brand that gave me the same uncomfortable vibe as people like Savile had. A kind of unspoken inner (psychological) violence that gets dressed up with bonhomie, affability, maybe a bit of menace. I always found Brand's blend of childish-yet-knowing rather unfunny, but also sinister. I didn't know enough about him or pay enough attention to have known about specific things he'd done, mainly because I didn't like him .

One thing I do remember was that voicemail prank on Andrew Sachs, and that did bring me up quite short - the way a kind of silly, whimsical bit of stupidity suddenly morphed into something predatory and emotionally violent, and I definitely didn't pay much attention to him after that.

 

[Poot]

Well I'm just going to come out and say it: I used to quite fancy him. At the start he was actually quite self-deprecating and a bit camp and very clever. People seem to have forgotten that. Lots of people, mainly men, have been able to pick him out as a wrong 'un in the same way as I can often identlfy a wrong 'un when she's female, and I do understand the whole forehead-slapping 'but why do they fall for it?!' thing. But yeah. Could I identify someone as a potential threat? Probably not tbf. That's why he (and others) are so dangerous.

 

[Petcha]

Maybe already been posted by Michael Barrymore is the latest to give his public support to poor Russ. His PR people must be tearing their hair out with the rogue's gallery who have got his back,

 

[maomao]

I checked my post on one of the 2014 threads when he went all political and I said he seemed sincere but let's see what he's doing in 5 or 10 years. I'm quite pleased with that.

 

[maomao]

Maybe already been posted by Michael Barrymore is the latest to give his public support to poor Russ. His PR people must be tearing their hair out with the rogue's gallery who have got his back,

Lucy Letby has expressed her support already.

 

[scalyboy]

And this is a very important point. I actually had someone come up to me in the pub last night insisting that it was suspicious that women had only just come forward, like it's an easy thing for a young woman - or, indeed, child - to accuse a rich and powerful and much older man and face having their lives/privacy/careers ruined:

Alleged victims do not have faith in police, journalist says​

Women choosing to report allegations of rape and sexual assault to journalists rather than the police is evidence of the lack of trust many people have in the authorities, a journalist working on the Brand story has told the BBC.
Rosamud Urwin, the Sunday Times media editor, says journalists have contacted the Metropolitan Police in London about the allegations about Brand.
Speaking to the BBC earlier, Urwin says there have been many reports in recent months of authorities failing victims who come forward, which makes people less likely to report alleged assaults to police.
"We've had a lot of stories about why women don't have faith in the criminal justice system to get justice, and within that the police."
She adds there are many reasons people don't want to report crimes and they "find coming to the media, as hard as it is, a preferable option".

Been reading various Brand supporters and 'truthseekers' asking of his (alleged) victims: "why didn't they go to the police? Why go to the media?"

One easy response is that Harvey Weinstein's trial and conviction were preceded by the New York Times and New Yorker investigations, and that after their findings were published, more victims came forward to strengthen the police's / prosecution's case.

Another response to the sceptics is this graph below (taken from the Graun, and 10 years old, but quite honestly after Wayne Couzens and David Carrick, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of women - or men - contacting the police to report being raped may now be even lower ).

My maths was never great. but I make it that if 15,670 reported cases result in only 1,070 convictions, that's a 6.8 per cent success rate.

Also very telling is the estimated number of rape crimes compared with the number that result in convictions (because so few are reported): between 1.13 and 1.78 per cent.

So it's completely unsurprising that rape victims would be reluctant to go to the police, and would have more faith in a sympathetic journalist.

 

[girasol]

Well I'm just going to come out and say it: I used to quite fancy him. At the start he was actually quite self-deprecating and a bit camp and very clever. People seem to have forgotten that. Lots of people, mainly men, have been able to pick him out as a wrong 'un in the same way as I can often identlfy a wrong 'un when she's female, and I do understand the whole forehead-slapping 'but why do they fall for it?!' thing. But yeah. Could I identify someone as a potential threat? Probably not tbf. That's why he (and others) are so dangerous.

Lots and lots of women and men fancied him. He was popular, charismatic, anarchic and funny. That's probably what made him think that, because so many people fancied him, EVERYONE must fancy him and every encounter, in his mind, was consensual. Isn't that exactly what happens to these men when they get to power? They think they are irresistible, that they can have anyone they want?

 

[Aladdin]

AnnO'Neemus ..I just want to say how sorry I am that you were treated so badly and when you looked for help the people who should have been there to help were dismissive.....it's appalling.

 

[Thora]

Well I'm just going to come out and say it: I used to quite fancy him. At the start he was actually quite self-deprecating and a bit camp and very clever. People seem to have forgotten that. Lots of people, mainly men, have been able to pick him out as a wrong 'un in the same way as I can often identlfy a wrong 'un when she's female, and I do understand the whole forehead-slapping 'but why do they fall for it?!' thing. But yeah. Could I identify someone as a potential threat? Probably not tbf. That's why he (and others) are so dangerous.

Same, and I thought his first book was really good too.

 

[Sue]

They think they are irresistible, that they can have anyone they want?

I also think part of it is in the getting what they want in spite of the other person.

 

[Thora]

Lots and lots of women and men fancied him. He was popular, charismatic, anarchic and funny. That's probably what made him think that, because so many people fancied him, EVERYONE must fancy him and every encounter, in his mind, was consensual. Isn't that exactly what happens to these men when they get to power? They think they are irresistible, that they can have anyone they want?

I doubt he thought every encounter was consensual, he just didn't care if it was and felt entitled to do as he pleased.

 

[girasol]

Same, and I thought his first book was really good too.

Yep, I read it. It was good indeed. I thought he was an interesting person, who had a fucked up upbringing, dealt with drug addiction, sex addiction and had made something of himself. Didn't his dad pay for him lose his virginity to a prostitute sex worker when he was fairly young? What a dickhead. But also when I was a teenager myself I'd known of a couple of dads doing that with my teenage male friends. It wasn't a secret or anything, just something that some dads did as a rite of passage. This was the mid 80s, and to be fair some of us thought it was bizarre. For Brand it would have been around 1992, not exactly the dark ages of the 70s!

There it is: Russell Brand's dad paid for him to have sex with sex worker at 16-years-old