Russell Brand, the populist comedian and conspiracy theorist, has officially been accused of rape and sexual assault. The allegations, first reported by the UK’s Sunday Times, have caused various reactions, with Brand denying the allegations on his social media. But more than an example of a celebrity being accused of serious misconduct, Brand’s allegations are concerning not only because of the alleged controlling nature of Brand himself but also because of those who seem inclined to defend him despite the seriousness of the allegations against him.
{DISCLAIMER: I am going into detail about what Brand is accused of doing to these women during the alleged assaults since they are extremely graphic, and it is not my goal to play to shock. Saying they are alleging rape and sexual assault is enough.}
The Allegations Contextualized
Right off the bat, examining the context in which Brand is accused of committing wrongdoing is important. Brand is accused of committing sexual assault, rape, and emotional abuse by four women between 2006 and 2013, at the height of his popularity as a comedian and media personality.
If the allegations are true, which I am inclined to believe they are due to the consistency of behavior described, it would suggest that, at the very least, Brand is a danger to those around him, and those defending him are contributing to that danger. But I will get to that in a second. The following description comes from the Guardian’s timeline, linked below.
According to The Guardian, one of the women accused Brand of sexually assaulting her while they were in a relationship when she was 16. Brand was 30 at the time. Brand was a BBC radio producer during this period and ran his show.
The Guardian, describing the allegations, said:
She told the Sunday Times they had met when Brand approached her in Leicester Square after she had been shopping, and proceeded to go through her shopping bags and critique her purchases. She said he took out a dress and said: “You’re going to wear this on our date this week.”
She claims she told her mother, who advised her to text Brand and tell him her age, but that he was undeterred, and on the date asked her to confirm she was 16.
The woman said that over the following weeks, Brand referred to her as “the child” and she alleged that he was controlling, and sexually and emotionally abusive. She said he sent a car to her secondary school to take her out of lessons and asked her to save his name as “Carly” in her phone to deceive her parents. He also allegedly gave her “scripts” on how to lie to her parents, and advised her to hide the relationship from her friends, describing the experience as “isolating”.
The woman and a family member described Brand’s behaviour to the Sunday Times as grooming.
Another woman, who has identified herself as Jordan Martin, accused Brand of sexually assaulting her during the course of a six-month relationship that started in February of 2007. Martin alleges that he assaulted her at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester after he found out she was texting an ex-boyfriend, forcibly seizing her phone and attempting to remove its batteries before grabbing her sexually. She outlined this experience in a book in 2014 and stands by her account.
Another woman told the Sunday Times that she met Brand at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 2013 and that he sexually assaulted her at his home, with her pleading, “ What are you doing, stop, please, you’re my friend.” Brand would then relent, according to her, but would end up snapping at her and firing her from her position, threatening her with legal action if she ever said anything.
It is also worth noting that Brand has previously joked about sexually assaulting women.
In 2020, the young woman Brand allegedly groomed as a child contacted Brand’s literary agent, attempting to draw attention to the issue of Brand’s behavior, but was dismissed as seeking money. Later, the talent agency Travistock Wood, which Brand’s agent co-founded, released a statement saying it had been “horribly misled” by Brand.
While everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence, it is important to note that most of these allegations demonstrate a consistent pattern of control over women in Brand’s orbit.
Nor is it the first time Brand has been accused of controlling behavior, albeit indirectly. His ex-wife, Katy Perry, has previously noted in a 2013 interview that Brand was seemingly disturbed by the level of influence she held as a celebrity. Describing her experience with Brand, Perry explained:
“At first when I met him he wanted an equal, and I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal, but then they get that equal and they’re like, I can’t handle the equalness. He didn’t like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful, and it was very controlling, which was upsetting. I felt a lot of responsibility for it ending, but then I found out the real truth, which I can’t necessarily disclose because I keep it locked in my safe for a rainy day. I let go and I was like: This isn’t because of me; this is beyond me. So I have moved on from that.”
While certainly not enough to indict Brand criminally, it does suggest that Brand seeks control over women not just in their lives as loved ones but also in their bodily autonomy and ability to choose their own path going forward. Such a controlling pattern is dangerous for obvious reasons but is also indicative of a quasi-presumption of ownership over others.
Examining The Russell Brand Defenders
To understand Brand’s current allegations, it is important to acknowledge his position as a conspiracy theorist within the last several years and how that plays into his defense against the allegations.
Brand has been part of a conspiratorial web of podcasters and YouTubers for the last few years, questioning the efficacy of Covid mitigation strategies and vaccines. His work has contributed to various ridiculous assertions, including the belief that Ivermectin is an effective treatment against COVID-19, despite all evidence. He has also promoted conspiracy theories involving the war in Ukraine, primarily siding with the Russian narrative of the conflict. He has even supported the thoroughly debunked biolabs conspiracy.
His previous appeals to left-wing populism combined with his newfound anti-globalist conspiracies made it so that right-wingers such as Tucker Carlson could present their opinions, which were based on little more than conjecture and conspiracism, as an objective representation of the facts that media elites were hiding from the public.
The utility of Brand as a conspiracy theorist to the right and the conspiracy-minded internet is precisely what makes his publicly available erratic history easy to ignore. Rather than merely being another celebrity facing salacious accusations, Brand is a rhetorical godsend for right-wingers as he does not fit neatly into their right-wing box while affirming their preconceived beliefs about the pandemic and politics.
To lose that is to lose a political weapon.
And it is evident in the right’s defense of Brand.
In his video announcing the allegations, Matt Walsh described the issue titled Russell Brand Hit With Sex Assault Allegations. Is This His Punishment For Questioning The Left’s Narratives? He also argued that Brand’s views were “intolerable to those in power” and that he was possibly targeted for his actions, pointing to a woman claiming that she was contacted by journalists asking about her interactions with Brand only for her to have her story discarded due to her not alleging any wrongdoing against Brand.
While I can neither confirm nor deny the allegations by this woman, as the video by Walsh does not provide her username and she does not identify the alleged journalist in question, it is worth noting the go-to defense by Walsh. Power. To Walsh, the accusations against Brand are part of a larger attack pattern against dissident voices.
His YouTube video, titled Another Politically Inconvenient Thinker Accused Of Sexual Assault (2023), is even more explicit, arguing that sexual assault allegations are “trivially easy” to use for political suppression.
It is worth noting that Walsh has made unusual comments about the fertility of underaged girls in unveiled podcasts in which he argued that teen pregnancy was not a problem but that unmarried pregnancy is. Describing the general public’s opposition to underaged pregnancy, Walsh explained that:
“To all of a sudden act like this phenomenon of girls getting pregnant at a young age, to be considered young – 16 or 17 – to act like it’s a new thing is ridiculous. It’s always been that way.”
While not an explicit endorsement of teenage pregnancy, it does fit with what is alleged against Brand in the case of the 16-year-old. It also fits with a thought process of control over women, as Walsh argued that girls are “most fertile” at younger ages, as if fertility and not consent are central components of relationships.
But Walsh is not the only one who is defending Russell Brand. Lauren Chen, whom I have previously criticized for her weak defense of Kanye West’s antisemitism, also came out with a defense of West in which she towed the same line.
In her video, she argues that Brand is being targetted by Big Pharma and that the women coming forward now don’t seem to add up in their stories without actually addressing them, dismissing them as “hearsay.” I should note that Chen tends to defend firing figures, as I noted in my video, so while Chen’s defense does little to address the allegations, it does fit with a pattern of behavior.
Perhaps more disgusting is Ben Shapiro’s defense of Brand, which appealed to Brand’s previous promiscuity as a sign that he was not engaging in sexual abuse against her, along with the inevitable age of consent defense.
“Brand was 30 and she was apparently 16. Now, in the United States, crime. In the UK, not crime. The age of consent in the UK is 16 ... Scuzzy, scumbaggy behavior? Sure. Criminal behavior? No, if you're, again, in the UK"- Ben Shapiro, Russell Brand DENIES Allegations, Sept. 18th 2023
While Shapiro does acknowledge that the 16-year-old girl further alleges sexual abuse by Brand, he proceeds to make the same tired argument about her hesitance to go to the police, asking why she didn’t come forward sooner. Mind you, this was a relationship that she is alleging she was groomed into engaging in. The gravity of which she didn’t fully appreciate until years later.
It is especially frustrating because, unlike Walsh and Chen, Shapiro repeatedly acknowledges that Brand was creepy towards women for a long time. Yet he still has to play the game of alleged media bias while attempting to undercut the allegations against Brand without any direct evidence of intent. He knows better.
Concluding Remarks
When I began this article, I didn’t plan to go into as much detail as I have in part because I felt it was unnecessary. Brand’s allegations are serious, and he has a history of controlling and pervy behavior. While that alone does not mean he is guilty, it should give pause to anyone who would normally defend him.
That said, as I went through the arguments from Brand’s defenders, I couldn’t help but notice that they maintained similar, oft-repeated arguments that rarely address the actual meat of the issue. And all for one man who has admitted he has a problem with women.
All of this is to say that the same bad-faith actors on the right have built themselves into a self-protecting network that seemingly exists to defend the worst, even when the situation is still in play.
Even as police have received their first report against Brand, this network of right-wingers will likely continue to ignore the seriousness of what Brand is facing and what these women allegedly have faced. All for the sake of maintaining a rhetorical weapon.