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Can-can-can you hear me in the back?

Can you hear me?

What about now?

Brilliant, Mr. Russell Brand!

Stand-up comedy!

This is a specimen bottle! Smell that!

He was this quirky, British bad-boy figure.

It stinks of opinions in here! Have you done an opinion?

This is Big Brother's Big Mouth!

Russell Brand!

Please welcome Russell Brand, ladies and gentlemen.

He was like a rock star.

Selling out arenas.

Making TV shows that people watch in the millions.

For Russell, it's like Shangri-La.

I'm not doing anything other than what I've done all my life.

I'm single. I like girls.

I get off on it, man.

Is that a crime? Does that make me a bad person?

People were afraid of their name being put out there.

That his lawyers would come after them.

I kept saying no.

I said, "Stop, Russell, stop."

"Please don't, please."

I begged him. I literally begged him.

I've had this feeling my whole life that something bad's gonna happen to me.

The Met police say they've received allegations

of a number of offenses in London and elsewhere.

Russell Brand under fire after multiple women

have accused him of sexual assault.

Poverty and anonymity to fame and celebrity.

- Yes. - And you're choosing fame.

Conan, in conclusion,

the sexual opportunities are far greater in celebrity.

They are.

There's barely any comparison.

Russell! Russell!

I love you!

Russell!

Russell Brand!

It started out as a story that was sort of circulating,

and to be completely upfront,

it's a story that is not in the public domain.

It has not been told.

Russell, in front of you, man.

People were threatened that if they spoke about it,

there would be legal action brought against them.

People started to get really frustrated because you kept hearing that

something was going to come out publicly,

and it just never did,

and so comics started talking about Russell Brand's behavior in their shows.

Probably the reason I hate him so much is because, um...

I'm a dad, and I've got this fear

that one day my daughters will bring something like that home.

From what I've heard,

journalists saw what comedians were talking about,

and that's what led them to investigate.

I began looking at Russell Brand in January 2019.

There were a few comedians who were being quite public

in-- in calling Russell Brand out.

They would say at the end of their shows, um, "Russell Brand's a rapist," mic drop.

We can't publish rumor.

It is so hard to expose people. You need such a level of evidence.

And it's a huge risk for any news organization

because we know that they get sued.

But quite early on, I came across somebody who had a horrific story.

A really bad allegation.

The worst thing that ever happened to her.

The hairs on my arms went up.

I felt I was in this strange limbo

where I knew something really awful had happened,

but she told me that she doesn't want to talk on the record.

I really was starting quite blind.

I tend to think of it as a sort of spiral when you do an investigation like this.

That you don't go to the people who are really close to him.

They might just forward the message to him.

So you start with people who are much more peripheral.

When he was younger.

His ex-girlfriends.

Other comedians.

You build up who their social circle was, and the worlds they were in.

Oh!

Why you pesky little crumpet, you.

Well, if it lands the right way up then that means that I'm the winner,

but it can't be wrong, and it can't be right because we're...

Three on the trot.

What is it supposed to mean?

I first met Russell when I was training as an actor.

I embarked on this theater course.

There was this guy sitting in the middle of the front row,

sort of like, legs manspread, taking up a lot of space.

Big, cheesy, Joker-like grin, and that was Russell.

He was a bit down-and-out,

so I offered him a back room in my house.

Russell!

Russell?

We did become friends. We became very close.

Russell's whole shtick was pulling pranks and playing different characters.

Yeah, let's ring Allen & Overy. I'll ring him as John Merrick, I think.

My name is John Merrick.

Um, can I just take your number and--

My lucky number is number seven, but it's not brought me much luck.

I'm very ugly.

Did you want to go out to the cinema with me?

You sound quite beautiful.

- Um-- - You are, I can tell.

He was unemployed.

He had just left drama college

and was adamant about not wanting to find ordinary work,

but he needed to pay the rent.

We have students from all countries,

of all ages.

Our teachers are both dynamic and friendly.

So he got a job in this little foreign language school on Oxford Street.

Nothing special.

On that time, he was my teacher.

He was nice and sweet.

I remember every Friday, we used to go to a pub.

He was different from other teachers.

Very, very clever, and I thought, "Mmm, very handsome boy."

I asked him, "Come to the toilet for kisses with me."

His eyes was open like, "What happened here? Who is this lady?"

I fancy him so much.

Slowly, slowly,

we fell in love.

It was my... my first love.

I was so nervous.

My butterflies in my heart.

Always holding hands.

He... I love his cuddles.

We did everything together.

We went to Paris, to Bali.

Kisses in different places.

He used to write for me poetry.

We don't really want to lose one more day.

We talk about we will have a big house and a big family.

We would talk about our future.

He was preparing to be a comedian.

A system of sounds That would make language perfunctory...

I used to want to have a good job,

but he want to be famous, to have an amazing career.

I'm so very tired of this script.

I never want to see it again.

He was very, very nervous.

He was practicing and practicing many hours.

Practice different sentences.

The brilliant Mr. Russell Brand.

Um, I thought I'd try my hand at stand-up comedy

because the world...

...the world of professional boxing can be quite cruel.

Don't laugh out of sympathy.

Actually, if you could, laugh out of sympathy.

Back in 2000, we had to create a showreel

for this audition for MTV.

Finsbury Park, I used to live here...

I borrowed the camera. We went to film one of his gigs.

I can see one or two of you are bored now. So I'll distribute some pornography.

There you go, sir.

These guys need porn! Get some more porn!

He wanted to be a celebrity...

And I want those back.

...to be considered a shocking, controversial performer.

Perfect for MTV.

This is a specimen bottle. Smell that.

Russell Brand, ladies and gentlemen.

He got the job. It was a big break.

You know, this is Russell, gonna be the face on television.

This is DFC for your MTV. We're in Ibiza...

MTV's thinking, "We've signed him, what are we gonna do with him?"

Let's stick him in a club.

- Hello, what's your name? - Cathy.

- I'm French. - You're French.

During the Second World War, did you collaborate with the Nazis?

Nothing worse than a straight person in a club. You look like some stuffy--

Put Russell in, off his tits.

If you had to describe it using a brand of potatoes,

like King Edward or evil dark cancer potatoes,

what kind of potato would you use?

No potato.

Russell can be spontaneous if he wants to be.

He's got total freedom and total liberty. He's in a playground.

Oh no, Ella. I'll pass you back over. All right, I love you too. All right.

All right, bye then.

That was the Metropolitan Police Force.

Apparently, I'm wanted for a series of terrible crimes.

Who'd have thought that? Eats wood chips quietly.

Eats wood chips quietly.

When I met him, his lifestyle was normal.

He used to take drugs like a recreation.

Smoking joints.

But he always is looking for something more.

He was taking a lot of drugs.

Cocaine and heroin.

Okay, so I'm failing to win, and I'm winning to fail.

I'm willing to win, and I'm failing to win.

His mood changed so much.

Success is so universally and ubiquitously desired.

It becomes like an anodyne...

I'd sooner see a phoenix descend into a grave of ashes

than see one ascend into the heavens with wings of flame...

Everything he do, he do in extreme.

If he likes something, he will, he will be focusing on that so, so much.

Do you find me more or less attractive than an angry wasp

plucking at your eyelashing--

eyelashes, eyelashes, and spitting venom into them?

- I suppose I find you more attractive. - More attractive than an angry wasp.

Well, Russell got sacked from MTV

because he decided to dress up as Osama Bin Laden

the day after 9/11 occurred.

But he managed to blagger a show with UK Play.

Hey, all right there, I'm Russell.

Um, this week's episode, we're looking at relationships between fathers and sons,

masculinity and all the things that that entails.

I do remember the episode with his dad.

It was much more of a personal thing.

I've decided to challenge my dad to a bit of a fight.

So, uh, you know, I'll fight him right up nice,

give him the battering of his life.

One thing in common we have, Russell and I,

is that we don't really get on with our fathers.

I don't think you've ever given a fuck about me.

'Cause, ultimately, when I was a baby, when I couldn't defend myself,

couldn't do nothing, you left.

You were more important.

It was more important to pursue your ambition than to look after me.

Russell's dad, I met him a few times.

I don't really like him.

His father was looking at me in a different... too much.

He was staring on me.

He was more aggressive, dark. I-I-I don't really like him.

Russell finally had the chance to settle it once and for all,

and he thought it was a good idea to put this on camera.

I do feel a bit better about myself. I feel like I've resolved a few things.

I feel like it had some value.

I feel like, you know, I should be stronger mentally.

The problems that I have in my mind are in my head.

They're not in my family. They're in my head.

The thing that struck me really early on looking into this,

I went through his books.

You know, him and his own words.

When he was younger, his father takes him to Thailand.

I remember him saying on a TV show that his father picked up two prostitutes.

One for him and one for Russell.

Basically got down to it together in the same room.

I mean, yeah, that's his dad.

- You remember that first night? - Yeah.

And then you had that other one. And I had that lovely young Filipino one.

You fell in love every time.

Yeah. And I remember sort of sat down on the bed with her.

She goes, "Russell, I have to leave before I fall in love with you."

And then from the other bed goes, "Oh, bleeding hell! Oh!"

"I'm going to be sick!"

I think male role models generally are incredibly important.

And, you know, if you've got your dad,

you know, having sex in the same room as you,

clearly, that is not a normal father-son relationship.

That's your first male role model right there.

Inevitably, that will affect how you behave towards women.

Russell's got this whirlwind energy every time you switch on that camera.

As soon as he sees the light on, he's bouncing off the walls.

Those natural skills

is something that anybody, I think, would be attracted to in thinking,

"That's exactly what we need

to front a show where anything can happen."

Lads! Have a mouthful of this porridge! I hope you like it salty!

Big Brother, in the early noughties,

was a massive cultural zeitgeist

and, with his new look,

launched Russell's career into the stratosphere.

It genuinely felt like one day you woke up

and he was immediately everywhere.

He just skyrocketed because he was so ready to be a superstar.

Now, for your host, Mr. Russell Brand!

Please welcome Russell Brand!

It's Russell Brand!

Please welcome Russell Brand, ladies and gentlemen.

When he exploded onto the scene, you're like,

"What an incredible creature!" Like, eloquent and poetic and eccentric.

I think I look like a Dickensian gent, or perhaps an S&M Willy Wonka.

The Golden Ticket! Hey!

Why stop at golden tickets, Jonathan, when we live in a world with showers?

He was honest about his past

and the shadows that followed him, of addiction.

He became something that we sort of celebrated and enjoyed.

I think he was smart about his career

because he just fit perfectly with the time.

Oh! You look ever so nice, the pair of you.

- Thank you. - Thank you.

Why don't you kiss each other?

Oh, come on! That was a joke!

- I was ready! I was ready. - What kind of show is this?

Well, we did. We do kiss in private, but not for you.

When I think of the noughties, I think heightened, erotic, sexual energy.

Do you like a big build-up?

I love it, especially from women like you.

To start slowly and then work our way up.

Yeah, you can...

I think of just having a really good time.

It was fun.

Promiscuity and non-commitment

was celebratory and joyful.

A new word entered the English language.

A new kind of woman.

The ladette.

She's louder than the lads.

She's ruder than the lads as well.

Take that one!

Ladette culture was you could keep up with the boys,

that you could drink as much as them,

that you could have sex without repercussions.

It was a strange time to grow up because we were told,

"Oh, you can be just like the boys."

But if you did that,

you were then treated very differently by society.

- Russell! I love you, Russell. - We got a kiss?

Fame provides Russell with too many temptations.

He had a lot of attraction. I saw many girls around him.

It was like birds.

I can't face that way because it's ruining my hair.

I will conduct all my business over my shoulder.

And he enjoyed it.

The girls used to give him a phone number on his hand next to me, and I was shocked.

I'd say, "What happened here?"

I try myself so, so much, and I love him so much,

so much, you cannot imagine.

Come here, gorgeous!

It's Russell Brand! Hello!

But too many girls around him all the time.

Don't be shy! Mwah!

Don't tempt me, love.

I shall, I shall.

You're made of flesh.

And we couldn't have intimacy together anymore.

And at the end, eh, he admitted that he had a sex addiction.

I used to be in love of, of a-a guy that now is totally different.

I felt that something dark he had inside.

And I left forever.

I was such a wild child.

What I found liberating was that if I call myself a slut before you do,

then I'm the one in control.

I was extremely promiscuous,

and it was so much fun.

I remember thinking, "Oh my God, he's so fit."

I liked guys who wore eyeliner.

The big hair.

The tabloid energy and his energy were just a perfect match.

He was surrounding himself with exciting women.

Amy Winehouse.

Kate Moss.

And he was a hero.

I knew that this girl that I knew had his number,

and I begged and begged and begged her.

Ugh. And I sent him a text.

I think it was something along the lines of,

"Hi, Russell, I'm so-and-so's friend. Do you want to meet for sex?"

Before I knew it, I was out in Camden.

I get a text back, and I'm like, "Oh my God! He's texted me back!"

He's like, "You wanna come round?" I'm like, "Fuck, yes!"

I think it's Christmas.

I get in a cab, and he answered the door in his pants.

And then I just went in, and it was very, you know, matter-of-fact.

This is what we're doing. And then that happened again and again.

I suppose I was hoping for him to, like, fall in love with me.

Good morning. Hare Krishna.

But I wasn't deluded in any way.

I knew that I definitely wasn't the only girl he was seeing.

Hare Krishna.

We were on a conveyor belt.

Being swiftly replaced with the next girl an hour later.

She was walking up the drive,

and he said, "Stay. You'll like her."

And I was like, "I think I'd better go."

It's an unwritten rule that I do pledge at least an orgasm per person.

So, I think we should lift the lights and see what I've got myself into.

I may now move among you.

Every show Russell does, he makes it clear to the audience that,

"One of the reasons I'm doing this is so I can meet women,

and you can come backstage afterwards."

I want to get down a gully.

Come down this gully.

Right, fucking A. You don't have to ask me twice.

You want me down your gully?

Down your gully is where I shall bloody well end up.

Thanks.

It does seem like he got his material from his real life.

When you look back at that material,

he was sort of bragging about the things that he was doing.

Um...

Which is obviously

quite, sort of, bleak now.

Before you kiss someone or have it off, you've gone through...

well, admittedly, in my case now, rather stunted rituals.

"You're Russell Brand!" "Yes, I am." "Can I have a photo?" "Yes."

"Let's go to this toilet."

"Fuck me, yeah!"

"Fuck me!"

Mmm!

"Fuck me! Fuck me!"

I really wish that we'd all taken him at his word.

I can pretend to be nice for a little bit at the beginning of a relationship.

"I'm quite nice. I nod a lot. I'm quite ni--"

"Yeah, come round my house. We'll just watch a video."

"I'll sleep on the sofa."

It definitely felt like nothing was off limits.

Yeah, I was just talking to you 'cause... yeah, for sex.

I'm sorry, I've got...

I think if you tried to complain about anything,

then you were told you just needed to have a sense of humor, and it was a joke.

"Oh, you're a party pooper."

"Nobody's sexist anymore. What's the big problem?"

"You just don't get it."

I'd have an invite to go meet Russell backstage,

and there was literally a queue.

You see girls so blown away by stardom, fame,

sparkling lights in front of their eyes, kind of mesmerized by this guy.

From Russell's point of view,

you know, it was like Shangri-La.

Lots of women wanted to have sex with Russell Brand.

Russell Brand would say this himself.

He had a huge amount of sex in the noughties.

And of course, he was winning prizes for "Shagger of the Year."

Um, three times in a row, I think.

But yeah, they celebrated him for it, they cheered him for it.

That's what I've realized now.

Is that a lot of this book makes me look bad.

What?

- You get locked out. - When I got locked out of my apartment.

That leads to me spitting in a prostitute's face.

He admits to spitting in a woman's face, in his own book.

"I had sex with her." "Oh, really?"

"Yeah! And by sex, I mean bumming."

"Oh, yeah?" "Yeah! Right up the old bum."

Now, if that's not the best bit of literature...

...then I shall sign every damn book,

and I shall f*** every last one of you people.

His book, loads of people had read it,

and yet when I looked at the reviews, they weren't being critical of him.

Thank you very much.

I get off on it, man. I gotta tell you.

I like it. Is that a crime?

Does that make me a bad person?

And there's other behavior in there which is so questionable,

from quite an early age,

in terms of how he treats women around him.

I was following the leads,

and the leads tended to be people who had bad experiences.

And one of the complications is that some people had experiences

that didn't cross the criminal bar.

That doesn't mean they're not reportable,

but it does make it more complicated because you think,

"Is there a clear public interest in including this?"

- Right here, please. - Mr. Brand.

To your left.

The fundamental thing here was you had somebody who said,

"I'm this playboy. It's all great."

"Everyone's enjoying the sex they have with me. It's all wonderful."

But actually there was this really darker side to it.

I remember one time, Russell comes home,

and he's brought a girl,

and he's got her into his bedroom,

and it was getting really calamitous in the room,

you're hearing loads of noise, and you can hear the girl shouting,

"Let go of me."

I'm thinking, "This has gone on long enough."

And so I open up my door, and I see Russell holding onto the girl

with both of his hands,

gripping hold of her arm trying to pull her back in

like a tug of war,

and she's wrestling herself away from him,

and then as I switch the light on, the light comes on, and he lets go.

And then she said, "Listen, you saw what happened, didn't you?"

And I said,

"Well, if you want to report it,

feel free, and I will support you."

Whether she reported it, I don't know.

Morning, Russell.

This is The Russell Brand Show.

Now, we used to be on BBC 6 Music.

We've been, I suppose, you know, let's call it promoted to Radio 2.

I suppose we have a brief to bring enlightenment and joy.

You don't muck about, do you? Jesus. You know what I mean?

When Russell got his job at BBC Radio 2,

I was very happy for him

because I knew that, you know, that's what he wanted.

The BBC wanted to appear a bit hip.

Having Russell as a host would be their way to target younger viewers.

David Walliams is on the line. You all right, David?

Good evening, Russell Brand.

The radio show was very boys' club laddie. It's like, "What's Russell gonna say now?"

"What will he say that will be outrageous?"

Perhaps we should build our friendship more,

spend more time together.

Well, I'd like that, but unfortunately,

every time I've ever made it to a social occasion with you,

you always said, "Sorry, I can't come."

"I'm about to be tossed off in the toilet by some fan."

That's obviously a euphemism that David's using there.

I went to his house, and we were watching telly.

Fawlty Towers came on the TV.

The most beloved sitcom of British culture.

And just out of nowhere, I blurted out, "Oh, it's Grandad!"

Get a clean one.

My Grandad was a fantastic character actor,

and he's like, "Which? John Cleese?"

I'm like, "No, no. Uh, Manuel."

Fire! Fire! Fire!

No, no!

- Yes! Sí, sí. - Look, will you get back in there?

Yes! No!

Bam! Changed everything.

My phone starts blowing up in my hand, and I get bombarded by press.

Russell left a voicemail on my mobile.

He said, "I've just done something really naughty."

"My friend Jonathan's here, and we think you should break into

your grandparents' house and destroy their answering machine."

I'm like, "What?"

Oh no! This is Andrew Sachs' answer phone.

- This is unconventional. - I'll blurt something out.

Don't blurt something out. Not on the answer phone.

I can't answer at the moment. Please call again or leave a message.

Speak after the tone, thank you.

Hello, Andrew, this is Russell Brand.

- I'm with Jonathan Ross. - Hello.

Now, Man... Andrew Sachs.

- Don't call him Manuel. - I called him Andrew Sachs!

- No, I apologize. - I said Andrew Sachs!

He's an idiot.

Look, Andrew Sachs, I've got respect for you and your lineage and progeny.

- Never let that be questioned. - Don't hint.

I wasn't hinting! Why did that come across as a hint?

Because you know what you're talking about.

He fucked your granddaughter!

Code red!

It snowballed from there.

The BBC has apologized after two of its best-known presenters,

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand left offensive messages

on the actor Andrew Sachs' answerphone.

This row has been snowballing.

Both Mr. Ross and Mr. Brand do have to make an apology.

This was inappropriate and unacceptable behavior.

I now acknowledge it was a really, really stupid thing to do.

Have you apologized to Georgina?

I've not had a chance to apologize to Georgina yet

because I'm a little bit embarrassed and thought I might make it worse.

I really felt like I was the most hated person in Britain.

And I just couldn't understand

why do these adults, these grown-ups, why do they all hate me?

They cast me in a role of press whore slut.

I was made into a villain.

Good evening. Two of the BBC's biggest stars are off the air tonight.

Russell Brand has resigned, and Jonathan Ross has been suspended...

Jonathan Ross got suspended for six weeks.

Quick slap on the wrist and back to work.

Russell...

Oh, Russell did it again! How naughty.

I was just trying to put the bits of my life back together,

and I see this massive billboard, and it's Russell's face, and it says,

"Scandalous."

Thank you!

Thank you for coming to see me in a medium

in which I am still allowed to flourish...

...after what I've done.

You beautiful bastards.

Oh my God.

He's using what happened to me and my family as material.

Like, how fucking dare you?

Hey!

Hey.

The thing that troubles me most about that scandal is this.

I do worse things than that every day.

I'm loose.

Hello?

I felt profoundly that over and over again he had told us exactly who he was.

Oh, Jesus!

He threw a bra.

It was sort of a bit sexually exciting and a little bit frightening.

As all sexual interaction ought to be.

I couldn't believe how much he was admitting to.

It's quite a clever way of hiding.

You tell people this stuff, so you've normalized it.

So the rest of the stuff maybe gets lost because you already admitted to so much.

Oh my God, people are showing their boobs.

For heaven's sake, you about know my reputation. Now...

Some stories, you start asking questions,

and then a huge bunch of people are desperate to talk to you.

That really, really wasn't the case here.

The particular difficulty here is your sources are victims

of something often very terrible.

I'd find a new person.

She'd tell me a terrible thing, and they wouldn't want to take it forward,

which I completely understand.

People are scared of the power of celebrity.

People were afraid of their name being put out there.

That his lawyers would come after them.

They were worried about his fan base.

What people would say about him online.

And people didn't think they'd be believed as well.

It could be completely the wrong time in somebody's life.

Or very often, people, in some cases, haven't told anyone.

I was 26.

I'd just split up with my husband.

Probably wouldn't have admitted it at the time,

but quite a vulnerable place.

I'd given up on love,

and Russell texted me.

I thought he was funny. I wanted to hang out with him.

He asked me to stay in his apartment,

and I was like, "Why not?"

A bit of fun.

When he first went to LA,

very early on when we were in a relationship,

he texted me saying,

"I'm gonna be a millionaire," something like that,

because he was getting his first film.

This is the argument.

You want to go horseback riding,

and she wants to sit in the room and hang out.

The role in this particular movie was the character version of himself

that everyone expected him to be.

I'll do something that'll surprise you. Tell me what it makes you think of.

- What does that make you think of? - I don't want to do that.

- I don't want you to do it. - I don't wanna--

I don't want you to. It'd be unsettling. I don't know what orifice you'd use...

Russell appealed to America.

Look, he's the British rock star, "sex god."

- Open your mind real wide. - You'd rather ride a horse than have sex?

Well, let's combine the two. I'm an adventurous man. Sex on horseback.

- That was fantastic. - That was fantastic.

He got the part.

Most of the filming was going to be happening in Hawaii.

And he asked me to go with him.

He did say that he took me along because he wanted someone there

to stop him from trying it on with people on set.

But that's kind of not how it played out.

In Hawaii,

he didn't feel comfortable with me sunbathing on the beach

or even outside the bungalow.

He would say things like,

"Oh, you're dressing like an attention-seeking tart."

He said, "Oh, from now on, just wear black."

I remember

he accused me of flirting with one of the crew members,

and I was like,

"Who are you... I can't believe you're accusing me of this

because I've only spoken to him on a couple of occasions,

and his wife's been there."

And he was like, "Oh, no."

And he said, "I just said it because I wanted to see how you would react."

It just felt like I was in a constant state of confusion.

His energy was so big

that it kind of just made you smaller every time.

He had a yoga session, and he had sex with the yoga teacher.

And he told me. He was like, "Yeah." So I'm like,

"What am I doing?"

He said to me, "I should be dating somebody more famous than you."

He was reinforcing sex with strangers doesn't mean anything.

They're objects.

He wanted me to taste anonymous. He didn't want me to be familiar to him.

And so he was asking me to brush my teeth, but it just was never enough.

And so he's standing over me, and I'm brushing and brushing,

and then I'm seeing my teeth bleeding.

And the association with...

I need to stop. I'm sorry.

It got more intense.

He told me that he just wanted me there all the time.

We were in a hotel in the UK,

and I'd been on my phone outside of the room

to the person I'd been close to before seeing Russell.

He had a bag of mine,

and I just was trying to arrange to pick that bag up.

And when we went back into the room, Russell was just standing there.

He asked me who I was on the phone to. I told him, "I need to get my bag back."

And so he snatched my phone out of my hand and broke it apart into pieces.

So I kind of snatched the phone back and went into, like, a separate room.

I just was standing there to have a moment to try and figure out,

"Okay, what's going on?" You know, "What are you doing, Jordan?"

And he walked in. Um...

He didn't say anything.

He put his hand down the front of my jeans...

Sorry.

And he inserted a finger and then walked away.

I didn't report it in any way. I didn't share it with anybody.

I sat with it quietly.

Um...

I look at myself back then, and I feel sorry for myself.

And not in a bad or pitying way, I just feel like...

...it wasn't very fair, you know?

I had some dark nights of the soul over this.

Like many people who work on these stories, it'd invade my dreams.

I would have dreams about him.

That's partly because I had sort of an uneasy conscience about it.

I felt I was in a strange limbo.

A year into the investigation, COVID happened.

We weren't able to go out and meet people. That limited my ability to work.

The added complication on a personal level was I was pregnant.

My investigation was slowing down.

Thank God Charlotte came on board.

I'd worked on investigations,

but this wasn't like anything that I'd ever worked on before.

Something that really stood out to me from his book,

was the line, "What kind of man was I, treating women in this way?"

"If this is what I'm telling you, can you imagine what's being left out?"

And that was a quote that was always in the back of my mind.

So I guess we were very much looking at what was left out.

Journalists who looked at this previously

focused on his BBC career, comedy.

There had been less focus on his life in the US.

- Hi, Russell. - We're going to your show.

Hello, darling. You all right?

- How are you? - I'm in a very, very good mood.

Bedtime stories.

Thank you.

That's kind of how I ended up looking, in particular, at this part of his life.

On our way to Vegas. Um...

It's called,

"What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas."

Um... I'm here with my--

This my new best friend, right here.

That's a small token.

You provided the plane, the tickets, the hotels to the big fight.

I provided the toothpicks, though.

And the whores.

Well, okay, we've not discussed that.

But... If... all right, I will try to.

I'm not a misogynist.

I'm against that kind of language. I like to think of them as damsels.

Damsels?

Russell!

He was in Hollywood movies.

It's so hard to break America.

And he did.

That was probably such food for the ego,

you know, like, untouchable now.

I mean, I think you're a genius.

You make me look good,

and that's why we're together, and I picked you.

- Well done. - Thank you.

Thank you for letting us do an interview with you, darling.

This is stupid!

Uh-oh! She's burst out!

No!

Katy! These are all our things.

His relationship with Katy Perry catapulted his fame into new heights

because she's someone who is, you know, next-level fame.

Katy announced herself in my life by hurling a bottle at my head.

So, initially, I felt sort of embarrassed.

Then she sort of ambled over, very sort of laconically and confidently

and a very sort of spellbinding person.

From there, I became enchanted.

Word on the showbiz grapevine

is that they're now engaged.

What's up, Katy?

The couple's reps confirmed the engagement

picked up by all the celebrity magazines on Tuesday.

Katy! Russell!

Comedian Russell Brand and pop star Katy Perry

have tied the knot during a traditional Indian wedding ceremony.

Security was tight outside a tiger reserve in India's north.

The lavish wedding procession included 21 camels,

elephants, and horses, of course.

All of it just doesn't seem real.

He's doing exactly what he always wanted to do

and be married to someone famous, which he always said he would be.

- You're better than the Beckhams. - That's a nice thing to say.

All right then, a little bit of life.

With me!

- Hey, Russell! One more time. - Katy!

Katy!

You've been dealt quite a blow by the press.

- Do you think so? - Everyone's positive about you.

I don't know. I mean, I certainly am. It's been fantastic.

Let's talk about Katy and Russell.

Apparently, they had a major blowout. What happened here?

- I did watch the Oscars. - I call him on his bullshit.

"Oh my God, you're so funny. I can't believe it."

And have a lovely night.

There were rumors that their marriage may be on the rocks.

She kind of debunked it a little while ago,

but now it looks like that could be the case.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

Wow, Russell's pushing everybody. You're in a bad mood, huh, bro?

New reports this morning, Katy Perry,

her 14-month marriage to Russell Brand is over.

Russell, man...

The couple did not have a prenuptial agreement.

Brand could be entitled to half of Perry's estimated $45 million worth.

There was quite a famous interview with Vogue

where Katy Perry draws on the end of her relationship with Russell Brand.

She reveals she hadn't heard from him since he dumped her by text, she says.

And she referred to finding out the real truth,

saying it's something that she keeps in her safe for a rainy day.

This reinvention from the UK.

So you're not like this all the time?

You don't want to be around when the laughter stops.

Hollywood star, Katy Perry, he occupied so many different spaces,

and, you know, Russell Brand knew a lot of people.

We had an enormous spreadsheet of names.

We were adding to it all the time because often you speak to someone,

and they give you some names, and then it sort of goes on like that.

Among the people I spoke to,

the one that stands out to me the most is Nadia.

She described meeting Russell Brand in 2012.

This is where she's describing the second time she met up

with Russell Brand.

"He pushed me up against a wall, and I'm like, 'What are you doing?'"

"He's like, 'I have a friend here, and I want you to come in the bedroom.'"

"I'm like, 'No, that's not happening.'"

"'I don't care. That's not happening. We're not doing that.'"

"And I tried to get away from him."

"And at this point, he's grabbing at my underwear,

pulling it to the side, and I'm telling him to get off of me,

and he won't get off."

"And he has that glazed look in his eye again, and I can't move,

and I told him, 'Get off! Get off!'"

It's at this point she alleges he raped her.

She goes on to say that afterwards,

"He blocks the door that I've come into because he doesn't want me going."

"He's like, 'Are you okay?' I'm like, 'No, I'm not okay.'"

"'You need to get away from me,' and he's like, 'Let's calm down.'"

Nadia left his house, and at 3:29 a.m., he sends her a text message.

"I'm sorry, that was crazy and selfish. I hope you can forgive me."

She messaged him,

"Do you know how scary you are when that glazed look comes over you?"

"When a girl says no, it means no."

"Do I have to go and get myself tested?"

He replies, "I'm very sorry. You don't need to get tested."

"I will make this up to you somehow with love and kindness."

There's a gap, and he asks, "Will you ever forgive me?"

- Hello! - Russell!

He had the opportunity to defend himself against that accusation,

and instead, he responded with an apology.

She told me about being treated in a rape crisis center.

This was the most serious allegation that I'd come across, and so with Nadia,

I knew that we would be accusing Russell Brand of rape.

You just don't find many people with the level of evidence that Nadia had.

I just thought, legally, this would put us in an incredibly strong position.

Nadia's allegation was in mid-2012,

and there were rumors about his behavior in relation to women,

I think circling in Tinseltown certainly by 2013.

It seems there were people in America

who were really starting to question his behavior,

and it's about this point that he returns to the UK.

Russell Brand, ladies and gentlemen!

There he is!

Is it possible to get any new information out of you

because you've pretty much said everything about yourself,

or are there things that you hold back?

Just sort of a bloke from Essex, from a single-parent family,

that's a pretty comprehensive show-off.

- Yeah. - Oh, and also I raped someone once!

The comedian Russell Brand has had a busy year,

mainly because he's been transforming himself away from being a comedian

to becoming a political agitator.

Don't get me wrong, he's still funny, but angry funny as opposed to lewd funny.

People are disillusioned with traditional, conventional politics

that doesn't represent us, the ordinary people.

No one wants the NHS dismantled.

My mate Lee, who's a fireman in...

He's a calculated person.

He realizes the power of being a political figure.

I mean, to be fair, it's quite a clever strategy.

He was getting on the front foot.

What a lot of people in your line of work misunderstand

is that we don't want pedagogic figures coming in and didactically shouting at us.

Hello, I'm Russell Brand, the professional person.

Did you see me on...

You can see it in the videos he's posting online.

He shakes off his former bad boy, promiscuous image.

One rule for most people and another, much better rule,

for the elites that govern us.

Is it true you don't even vote?

Yeah, no, I don't vote.

Well, how do you have any authority to talk about politics then?

Well, I don't get my authority from this pre-existing paradigm,

which is quite narrow and only serves a few people.

I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity.

This is The Trews, I'm Russel Brand. I'm here with George Monbiot.

- Is that right? - Monbiot.

Monbiot. Don't say that last bit. George Monbiot. That's more glamorous...

I was just astonished by this guy.

Brand was wild.

Exactly what left-wing politics was lacking at the time.

People don't feel like they want to engage with the current political system

because they see that it doesn't work for them.

They see that it makes no difference, they see that they're not served.

Of course it doesn't work if they don't bother to vote.

Jeremy, my darling...

He threw Jeremy Paxman in the shade

and was able to talk about revolution,

which, you know, no one else could really have got away with.

I think that we need to see punitive measures,

because if there are no penalties the behavior will happen cyclically,

so people need to go down,

and it's the people that have got the money that need to go down.

It was bizarre.

Something had just shifted from Russell Brand being this joke figure

to suddenly, he's like the political messiah.

Apart from my admiration of firefighters, much that Russell probably--

Pay their pensions then, love.

Excuse the sexist language, I'm working on that.

The left in politics

didn't seem to care about the way he talked about women.

Oh, but he's popular, so we're going to embrace him.

If ordinary people come together, we have a genuine chance...

When this very charismatic man, with working-class roots, suddenly goes,

boof, onto the political scene,

that's what gave him a lot of power at this moment.

We're living in a culture

where the worst aspects of our nature prevail.

I don't think it's always been like this.

I remember growing up with strong unions,

with strong social care.

It's been lovely speaking to you.

Have a wonderful day. Have a wonderful night.

Stay with the movement.

Power is a really difficult word.

Every one of us has that,

but it's what we do with it.

Yeah, it was an extraordinary honor.

I can't imagine what I'll do for my next one. My God, here he is.

I just got your message.

I've always figured out my emotions by writing things down,

and that's exactly what I did.

I decided to publish it when I was having a daughter,

and I really did know at that point

the things that I'd been through were not acceptable,

because I knew that I wouldn't want that to happen to her.

So... Sorry.

I wrote the book as a therapeutic experience,

what an unhealthy relationship is.

But when you write the book,

you do also want people to have a response to it, a reaction.

In 2015, I worked in PR,

and I was like, "I know how to reach out to press, I've worked with media,

and they're going to want to have these stories,

they're going to want to share it."

But, yeah, it was just like radio silence.

Tonight, for the next 90 minutes, I give you Russell Edward Brand.

A true superstar.

All right, mate.

I rapidly realized

I wasn't going to get any type of response from the press.

The things I was sharing in the book,

it didn't actually serve the media at that point

because they had a different narrative they wanted to share about Russell.

The Observer did a profile on you and asked at the end of the piece,

"What will become of Russell Brand?"

Oh, that gave me an eerie, haunted-house feeling.

I've had this feeling my whole life that something dodgy is going to happen,

something bad is going to happen to me.

I'm scum. I'm a scumbag. Scumbag--

I'm subject to failings and flaws.

I've done terrible things in my life. I've done nasty, nasty things in my life.

Nasty things that I'm ashamed of and I've got to live with.

I was in my late twenties when I met Russell.

He was a few years younger than me.

I didn't know anything about him. He wasn't famous at the time.

I loved how his mind worked.

Hello?

I loved the creative side of his thinking.

Yeah, it's Russell.

Uh, are you busy?

He was very romantic.

He was very gentle.

I remember some mornings waking up, and he would play Burt Bacharach,

and he would wrap his arms around me,

and he would sway from side to side singing these songs to me.

He was quite vague about his lifestyle.

He never told me about any other woman he was dating.

He did, however, tell me other things about women.

Quite graphic things.

Such as his encounters with prostitutes,

which was really quite disturbing, actually.

But at the same time, I felt quite safe knowing he was very gentle with me.

Our relationship had a different kind of dynamic, more tender.

I was just quite happy to be in his presence.

He definitely had that magnetic personality

to draw you in and make you feel like

you're the most special person in the world.

And that's how he made me feel...

...until he didn't.

We had woken up in the morning, and I understood he wanted to have sex.

I said to him, "Please, just get a condom."

And he was being all playful,

saying to me that he wants to feel close to me,

I said to him, "You can still feel close to me,

but please, you have to use protection."

Especially knowing his encounters with prostitutes

and all the things he'd gotten up to.

It stopped being playful...

...and then I thought,

"No."

"This guy's actually getting really serious."

And I said to him, "No, Russell, please, let's just use protection."

I kept saying no. I kept saying no.

I said, "Stop, Russell, stop. Please, don't, please."

I... I begged him. I literally begged him.

I tried to kick him off.

I tried to draw my knees back

to kick him in his belly, but he was too strong for me.

And he just... pinned my hands back behind my head,

and he just forced himself into me.

Sorry.

Whilst it was happening, all I could think of

were these horrific, graphic stories about the prostitutes,

and all I could think of was,

"Oh my God, this guy's going to infect me with something," you know?

And when it happens, you just feel like...

Is this...

Is this rape?

Because I'm with this guy, it's...

I know I said, "No," but... you question yourself.

You think...

"Did I do something wrong?"

And then I just left his as quickly as I could.

And I remember I did tell one of my friends.

She was the only person I told.

Back then, women felt shamed.

You didn't talk about it.

I just felt completely violated,

and unseen,

and unheard.

I was saying no.

I kept saying no.

"Stop, please. Stop, stop, no."

I decided to share my experience today,

in support of all the other women that have come forward,

and all women everywhere,

who have been subjected to any type of sexual harassment

or sexual assault.

Breaking news. Harvey Weinstein is about to turn himself in

on criminal charges related to alleged sexual misconduct.

Harvey!

This is something women all around the world have been waiting for.

Raise your hand and say, "Me too!"

Me too!

The power of that hashtag.

I did have a silent, still moment where I felt quite emotional

when I saw what it meant.

Hey, hey! Ho, ho...

People were recognizing that some of the behaviors that we were okay with

in the noughties,

actually, they're not okay.

Hello!

I think after MeToo, people were really ready to listen

in a way that they couldn't, or didn't want to, before.

And women in comedy started to share their stories.

I've done a show with someone who I, and you, believe is a predator.

It's such a messy thing because I don't have proof.

What, am I supposed to not feed my children because someone else...

Also, sometimes, especially in that instance

that you're referencing, it was about raising it rather than...

- I raised it. - Yeah, exactly.

I called him a predator to his face, every day.

Well, where's he? Hiding.

- Ooh! - Hiding.

I wonder if it's too late to get him on the show.

I've definitely heard things from multiple people over the years

about Russell Brand,

and I know that people had tried to expose him for years,

and from what I've heard, lawyers would...

stop them.

I've been contacted by people saying, "Why not say something if you knew?"

But it is much more complicated than that.

When you're dealing with powerful people,

the legal system has loopholes

that can be exploited if you throw enough money at it.

There's two things that break it.

It's the bravery of the victims that come forward,

and it's the hard work and diligence of the journalists that break the story.

I have a huge amount of respect for Ros,

having started this in 2019.

We were obviously voicing a lot of similar frustrations and fears,

and we had each other as sounding boards,

but, ultimately, the most important thing was the women we had spoken to,

doing everything we could to protect them.

It was that that made me feel sick at times.

What is going to happen when we publish? I was thinking of worst-case scenarios.

What if their identity is compromised? What if their mental health is affected?

Russell Brand is an unpredictable figure. Uh, would he go after them personally?

We just didn't know.

It's a very nerve-wracking time.

It's sort of like butterflies, but in a bad way.

I remember just waking up at 2:00 a.m. and cleaning.

People were tweeting about it.

It kept seeming like the truth was going to come out.

You kept hearing of stories that journalists were trying to get out,

and it would just never happen.

I'm loving the beard, bro.

Russell Brand stopped doing TV.

I don't know if it was because the industry knew

about the allegations and didn't want to work with him,

but it definitely seems very strategic that he set himself

outside of the mainstream.

People started to say, "We won't work with this person."

And he kind of disappears sort of from British TV,

and it's around that point

that he mysteriously becomes a kind of convert

to conspiracy theories and the far right of the political spectrum.

You may be tired of the mainstream. You may have lost your trust.

You may be sick of big business and mainstream media

and the state collaborating to keep you from having power in your own life,

and if that's how you feel, then I feel the same way you do.

I was a researcher on Stay Free with Russell Brand.

He's one of the first people that Rumble have ever given an exclusive contract to.

And that contract was worth millions.

Have you ever wondered how Bill Gates gets such positive media coverage?

It's because he owns it, or at least funds large parts of it...

Rumble was the perfect platform for him.

At the time, the alt-right were getting kicked off YouTube.

Since I've been talking, four children have gone missing.

- Fuck Antifa! - Fuck Antifa!

They were getting kicked off Twitter.

It hadn't been bought by Elon Musk yet.

So, Rumble was the perfect thing for that time.

It's a free-speech version of YouTube, where you can say whatever you like.

There is a global conspiracy by opioid killers and healthcare giants

to get you sick, keep you sick, and charge you money.

It was the weirdest setup I've ever been involved in, in my life.

He was obsessed with meditating, ice baths.

Oh!

Conspiracies were a big thing for him.

All he cared about was the US.

Perhaps he saw how successful other podcasters have been.

People like Tucker Carlson, who's huge in the US.

Tucker, thanks for having me. I was able to...

It was a deliberate strategy...

Give it a thumbs up, subscribe. Pass it around...

...to continue his career.

Click that notification bell,

so I can ding you right in the mind every time a thought comes into my head...

It's hard to believe it's the same person.

I find this transition one of the most troubling things

I've ever come across in my life.

He's now providing a channel for some really odious far-right people.

Our culture's decaying. Our free speech is under attack.

People who would destroy all the things that he once stood for.

A little while ago, I was a vegan living a simple life in Grays, Essex.

Now I'm eating steak at Mar-a-Lago. Funny how the world changes.

So Russell Brand is now constantly railing

against "the establishment" and "the elite."

Thanks for joining me on this glorious voyage

towards personal and community awakening

against Goliaths, tyrants, and titans who want to keep you dumb.

And at the same time,

promote these endless, discredited conspiracy fictions.

Misinformation!

Won't someone give me some true information?

What about Fauci?

Can he be relied on on the subject of COVID and the pandemic?

Hm?

He's talking about quite obscure bits of

fringe Republican Party policy in America.

You're like, "I think he lives in Hertfordshire."

He's a grifter, he's a shapeshifter.

I think, ultimately, he's a moral vacuum.

I heard it through the grapevine

that something was coming in relation to Russell.

And I think he knew

that his time was going to be up at some point.

The reality is that he's probably been a bit clever about it.

If I go into this area of conspiracy theory,

that if they did come out, people were going to say,

"It's a mainstream media plot to silence him because he's right."

"He's talking the truth finally, and no one else will talk about it."

We'd had this major breakthrough

with Nadia's evidence of rape.

And it felt like we're in touching distance of the end.

You kind of think, "Oh God, like, have we got enough?"

I mean, the corroboration process was still ongoing.

There were still other people that we were speaking to.

Um, you know, we did strongly feel that we wanted to have more voices on board.

A few months later,

I ended up speaking to a woman who says Russell Brand sexually assaulted her.

She recounted a moment when she says Russell Brand's eyes kind of went black.

There was no more color in them.

It took me back to my conversation with Nadia,

where she talked about his eyes glazing over.

Her story points to, like, an overall pattern of behavior.

There were parallels with other accounts and what people had told us.

Yeah.

The final deadline wasn't actually the moment we published.

It was the moment that we've decided we had enough to go for a right of reply.

So, we went to Russell Brand and said,

"This is what we intend to publish. Do you have any response to this?"

Once you've sent that, you can't go back.

That was gloves off. This is it now.

And then it all went quiet.

We gave Russell Brand eight days to respond.

The day before the deadline, his lawyers got back in touch.

They said, "The publication was a concerted campaign."

That their client believes, "There is a deeply concerning agenda to all this."

"Namely, the fact that he is an alternative media broadcaster

competing with mainstream media."

We gave those lawyers an opportunity to provide a full response,

um, and they didn't reply.

And then got a message saying Russell Brand's gone on YouTube.

Hello there, you awakening wonders,

now this isn't the usual type of video we make on this channel,

where we critique, attack, and undermine the news

in all its corruption, because in this story, I am the news.

Amidst this litany of astonishing,

rather baroque attacks

are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.

This is an opinion. He's not refuting anything.

And he didn't provide us with evidence that what we were saying was not true.

Now during that time of promiscuity,

the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual.

I was always transparent about that then.

And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal,

that I absolutely deny, makes me question, "Is there another agenda at play?"

This acts as a right of reply.

He is a canny media operator, and this is part of that.

He was getting ahead of us publishing.

I'm aware you've been saying in the comments for a while,

"Watch out, Russell, they're coming for you."

"You're too close to the truth. Russell's a conspiracy theorist."

"Russell Brand's--"

Because this video had gone out,

it kind of put this laser focus on the story.

Things moved quite quickly.

We had everything we needed, so we decided to publish.

You're watching BBC News.

Some breaking developments coming into us at the newsroom.

Russell Brand has been accused of rape.

Multiple women have accused him of sexual assault.

Four women have come forward with allegations as part of a...

Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse.

There's been some criticism about,

"Well, uh, the women didn't come forward until journalists contacted them."

But that's how the Harvey Weinstein scandal was broken!

And I don't think that's any reason to rule it out.

I do think his career is going to have to be on hold for now,

that he's gonna have to prove his innocence,

and there's gonna be a lot more investigating.

Despite those allegations emerging,

Mr. Brand is tonight appearing on stage

at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre in North London.

You came!

Thank you.

He was doing a stand-up tour at the time.

My colleague had been going along, watching his shows.

There were still references to sex and women's bodies,

but after we'd gone for the right of reply,

my colleague noticed that those references had been omitted.

It was as if someone had decided, after all these years,

that actually maybe, it wasn't that funny.

As soon as it's out in the world, it's overwhelming.

We had a lot of people email us with fresh allegations.

In the beginning, there were four sexual offense allegations

against Russell Brand and no police investigation.

Now Scotland Yard says they've received a number more.

British actor and comedian Russell Brand

has been accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed in New York.

A woman claims he assaulted her

when she was an extra during the filming of Arthur, 13 years ago.

I was working on the set of the movie Arthur.

Mr. Brand appeared intoxicated,

smelled of alcohol, and was carrying a bottle of vodka on set.

He then exposed his penis to me on set and in full view of the cast and crew.

However, no one disciplined, supervised, or reprimanded Brand.

The sexual assault happened later that same day

when I was in the bathroom.

Russell Brand was in the restroom

physically blocking the exit with his body,

with his pants pulled down and his erect penis exposed,

and assaulted me

as a member of the production crew guarded the door from outside.

In the weeks and months after we published,

from the perspective of a lot of the people that we've been speaking to,

the women, they were saying, "Well, what happens next?"

Obviously, there was a police investigation,

but we had no way of knowing what was going to happen at the end of it.

Russell Brand continued to make his content,

and, you know, nothing seemed to be happening.

Obviously, I've been through a lot of things.

I know you've been through a lot of things personally too.

But for me, I've reached the point

where the figure, the personage, the presence of Christ

became overwhelming, unavoidable, welcome, necessary.

To have gone on the journey from 2015, positioning himself as a progressive hero,

and where he is today,

being baptized by Bear Grylls in the Thames,

which, even as I say it as a sentence,

I feel like it's something that I dreamt after I ate too much cheese.

If each of us bears the image of the Lord, his hallmark and his signature,

if all of us are within his covenant and covered by his blood, then the...

I would say that if there is a cloud

of sexual assault allegations hanging around you,

probably the last thing you should do is tie yourself to organized religion.

Thank you for the gift that he is.

Father, I pray that you would encamp your angels around him.

I really don't buy that he is a genuine Christian

that goes to church every Sunday.

I think it's to appeal to that American audience.

They love a good Christian man.

I'm here to love you, I'm here to, as best as I can in my crazy accent,

tell you that my life has been irrevocably changed,

revolutionarily changed...

I think he positioned himself

towards an audience

that maybe don't necessarily have a problem

with allegations of assault hanging around a person.

I would not be surprised if he's coming out as a preacher soon.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing..."

I find it really difficult

to see Christianity used in the way that he uses it.

It's Easter,

a time of rebirth,

after death, after annihilation, after loss, after a journey...

You have to repent.

That's a fundamental part of trying to be a better person.

And for that, you have to listen to what other people are saying about you.

People say, "Look,

you only became a Christian seven months after the allegations

were made public, and that this is part of your thing."

That you worked out that this could give you some kind of cover.

- Do you have a denomination or not? - Why... Why?

- I'm just asking. - No.

It's not an allegation.

- I'm just asking. - I treat everything as an allegation.

In Christ, there is the potential

that you yourself can live with the odd paradox of your brokenness,

and the failings of your life,

and the mistakes you've made, and the errors,

but also becoming whole in that.

You were an atheist, you then became a Buddhist,

now you're a Christian.

- Now what are you gonna be next? - Well, yes.

- A Muslim? A Jew? A Scientologist? - That's what some people think.

You are attempting to create, using a collage of language...

- But you're the one who told us. - You told us that!

You were!

I'll talk about anything, but I prefer to talk--

- I know you're an atheist, you told me. - I prefer to talk about something.

We're talking about your profound belief in God.

And we're talking about the fact that you've been water-carrying for Satan.

- Who's Satan? - The fallenness.

- I've been carrying water for Satan? - Satan is...

Brand's whole shtick now is

to examine, is to inquire, is to be truthful, is to be authentic.

I am deeply fascinated with truth.

I am fascinated with truth.

We are going to find out the truth, and we're going to deal with the truth

because, actually, I am not afraid of the truth...

What becomes problematic

is when you introduce the confession of some women

who have been violated,

and that is not recognized or engaged with or examined.

Would you close in prayer?

Oh yeah, all right.

Can you imagine the ripple effect in the culture

if a man accepted that there had been a violation

that he feels bad about, that he regrets?

We had no way of knowing what would happen next.

We didn't know that there'd be criminal charges.

It could be that no one even paid attention to any of this.

Does this investigation end here?

Spring of 2025, Ros came round to visit me.

We were catching up on everything.

Just speculating, as you do with colleagues,

about what will happen next.

We said goodbye.

Ros hopped on her Lime bike and cycled away,

and it was, honestly, like, minutes after she'd cycled away

that news of the charges dropped.

I want to bring you some breaking news

that we just had from the Metropolitan Police here in the UK.

The actor and comedian Russell Brand

has been charged in connection with the following offenses,

one count of rape, one count of indecent assault,

one count of oral rape, two counts of sexual assault.

I'll have police here.

- What I suggest you do is move over there. - I'm not moving.

Your choice. You won't get shots. Your better shot's there.

It doesn't matter. I don't need it.

It's been a very long road to here.

At many points, it felt like we wouldn't get to this point.

It felt like a very significant moment.

Out of the way! Out of the way!

Go!

Get back! Get back!

The charges that the police had actually predate our allegations.

And one of them is as early as 1999,

and of course, Russell Brand wasn't famous in 1999.

Russell Brand didn't do what he did because he was called the talent.

My personal belief is Russell Brand would have done that anyway,

but the problem is being referred to as the talent

facilitated and enabled it,

and certainly prolonged it

in ways that I think we should all be very ashamed about.

Comedian Russell Brand is facing two further charges this evening,

one of rape and one of sexual assault.

The charges relate to alleged offenses against two women in 2009

and are separate to the charges

to which Brand pleaded not guilty in April.

I think it's a really important moment

for women, for culture, and for accountability.

What it means is that no one's above the law.

What it means is that women's voices are listened to,

even after many years have passed.

I thought, if these women are brave enough to come forward, then so should I.

I'm speaking now because I no longer feel I should have to carry this in silence.

No one should feel afraid because of something that happened a long time ago.

It doesn't matter. It still happened.

I still said no.

He should have listened to me.

I believe Russell needs to take accountability for his actions

and recognize that what he understood,

or experienced as consensual from my side, was not consent.

I think every woman's voice should be heard.

The more of us who get together and stand up for ourselves, the better.

None of us wanna talk, right? Because we're slut-shamed.

Or called liars.

But I personally need to draw a line under this.

I don't think it's about me.

This is about me saying it's okay to speak up,

be brave enough to speak up.

It's very scary,

but the reason I'm doing it is for that.

It's for the people I do know personally that haven't been able to speak up.

Those people that haven't had justice.