We go through the Dispatches documentary episode regarding the rape and sexual assault allegations facing Russell Brand. We also fill out additional details where possible, and discuss Brand's future. We do not shy away from criticising the media's coverage of this where required. This may seem obvious, but: Content Warning for graphic and disturbing descriptions of rape and sexual assault.
Rape Crisis UK - rapecrisis.org.uk
RAINN (US) - rainn.org
Full Dispatches Episode - channel4.com
Support us on Patreon - patreon.com/OnBrand
This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one Russell Brand.
I'm Al Worth, and each week I go through an episode of Brand's Show with my co-host Lauren B.
Hi, that's me, Lauren B. And all I know about what we're about to get into is that I'm concerned.
That's the appropriate response.
This is something of an unusual one for us in that Lauren has some idea of what's coming because this news is literally everywhere that there is news.
The long and short of it is that Russell Brand has been very credibly accused of rape and sexual assault by multiple women.
Um, on top of that there are multiple witness accounts to corroborate events.
Normally at this stage we'd do the good thing before the bad thing and do patron shoutouts and all that stuff but it would feel a little bit gross and to be honest knowing what we're about to go through I really don't feel like it.
So, what we're going to do is we're going to break down what the allegations are, what the evidence is, and I'll fill out any additional context where I can.
We'll also discuss how this is likely to affect brand in the future.
This all coming out is a result of the Times, the Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches team undergoing a substantial effort of investigative journalism for over a year.
for reference. Dispatches is kind of like Frontline or 60 Minutes, that kind of thing.
Basically, these are reputable journalistic institutions.
They don't fuck around for the most part.
Most of the clips I'm pulling today will be from the Dispatch's show about it.
Hopefully we don't get fucking copyright struck, because it is fair use.
But first, what I want to get into is Russell's preemptive response.
Well, should we do like a trigger warning, blanket trigger warning specific?
What are folks in for?
I will do when we get to that point, don't worry.
But yeah, fair to say this show is going to be a fucking struggle.
So I'm going to play the full clip from Russell, particularly as most places, for whatever reason, only played about half of it.
Yeah, which I found really frustrating because the whole context is much, much worse.
Because it doesn't really give a full picture of what Brand was saying.
So, yeah, here we go.
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.
I've received two extremely disturbing letters, or a letter and an email.
One from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper Listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn't be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel.
But amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies.
And as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.
Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual.
I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent.
And I'm being transparent about it now as well.
And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question Is there another agenda at play?
Particularly when we've seen coordinated media attacks before, like with Joe Rogan when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn't approve of, and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world using the same language.
I'm aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, watch out Russell, they're coming for you, you're getting too close to the truth, Russell Brand did not kill himself.
I know that a year ago there was a spate of articles, Russell Brand's a conspiracy theorist, You are.
I'm aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know for ages
and ages.
It's been clear to me, or at least it feels to me, like there's a serious and concerted
agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices.
And I mean my voice along with your voice.
I don't mind them using my books and my stand up to talk about my promiscuous consensual
conduct in the past.
What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.
Also, it's worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack.
Now, I don't want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I'm being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together.
We are obviously going to look into this matter because it's very, very serious.
In the meantime, I want you to stay close, stay awake, but more important than any of that, if you can, please stay free.
So that was released before all of this, before Dispatchers came out, which is unusual in of itself, to kind of release a response before the thing comes out.
Clearly the decision was made to get ahead of it.
And in terms of, you know, they're clearly working very closely together, Yes, they are.
They literally say it.
This is a joint effort between Channel 4's Dispatchers team and the Times.
Yes, they are working together.
Yes.
That's how journalism investigation works.
Yes.
And, you know, oh, it feels like a coordinated attack.
Well, what do you want, an uncoordinated one?
Because, I mean, I'm sure we could have done that.
I think he'd prefer an uncoordinated attack!
Probably, probably.
But this version is, yeah, much more accurate.
So, He's turned this into a conspiracy, is what he's done.
He's claiming that it's all been made up, coordinated and masterminded by the mainstream media to stop him from getting too close to the truth, whatever the truth may be.
The response to this video was largely one of, oh dear, Uh, but again, most news sites cut it off before he started getting into the conspiracy stuff, so even in this case, the general public is blissfully unaware of what the fuck he's actually been up to over the last few years, or particularly the last year, which has really pissed me off.
The best I've seen is people point to some video titles and say, hey, that doesn't look good.
Never mind that he's pro-Russia, pro-Trump, anti-vaccine, far-right wing, platforming and supporting the most racist and anti-LGBTQ plus people around, throwing anti-Semitic conspiracies about like candy, or that he wants us all to live in tiny ethnostates with Christian theocratic governments.
I don't expect that to be the focus of anyone's coverage, but a mention would be helpful so the general public understand what this man is these days.
Now, of course, not everyone responded poorly to his video complaining that it's all a conspiracy against him.
Notable support came in the form of Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and Andrew Tait.
Oh, and Katie Hopkins as well.
I did hear that.
I was like, oh no!
Andrew Tait said, welcome- Shortlist people I don't want on my side!
Andrew Tait said, welcome to the club!
Tucker said, criticize the drug companies, question the war in Ukraine, and you can be pretty sure this is gonna happen.
How is his audience reacting?
Well, I'm going to read you some of the comments from his Rumble page with this video on.
Top comment is, quote, as Tim Pool says, when they come after you, it means you're over target.
You hit a nerve with them somehow.
Whatever.
Even if I had never heard of you, the fact that the MSM is against you tells me that you are a good man.
Full support, bro.
And greetings from Florida, USA.
Unquote.
Next highest is, quote, to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.
Voltaire, unquote.
Oh my god, stop it.
Next, quote, we're with you, stay free, unquote.
And another underneath, quote, I only watch Russell for news these days.
MSM is made up of carefully constructed lies.
Thank God for social media and people like Russell, unquote.
Imagine having this man as your only media diet.
It's exactly what we talked about in the last episode.
None of the other pieces of media that you would get in the world fit in this particular narrative, which is unique because he's like skinned a leftist and put it on.
And that's a fucking problem in and of itself!
And none of the things that he says will ever be relevant to reality.
And so it just keeps people in his ecosphere of, oh, you know, this is where the real information is, because nowhere else is giving you the real information, despite the fact we have proven that it's all bullshit.
Now, this kind of nonsense is somewhat expected on Rumble, right?
So what about YouTube, I thought?
The top comment there is, quote, honestly dude, it's surprising it has taken them this long to try and shut you down.
For me and many people who follow your content, it is just a sign that you are on the right track.
Stay strong, brother, unquote.
Had me for the first part.
It's amazing it took them this long.
Took them this long, and... No, no, fucked it.
The next one is, quote, behind you all the way, Russell, you speak the truth, and them upstairs have to concoct a narrative to shut you up and down.
We all knew, those who follow you, that something like this was going to happen to you.
Keep strong, unquote.
And also, quote, of course they would come after Russell when he's shown himself as the one who encourages free thinking and free speech.
Something the mainstream media would absolutely hate to spiral out of their control.
Unquote.
I was actually running later than planned with this episode because a rogue brand follower showed up in my Facebook friends list from the music industry.
She wrote, All this Russell Brand nonsense is exactly that.
Nonsense.
If you truly believe this blatant attack, then you're a moron.
I had a few things to say to that, which is why I was a bit late.
She then accused me of not knowing anything about Russell Brand.
Oh, I bet.
I have some words for you.
You know, and let's not lose sight of the fact that women don't get a pass.
No one can be cruel to women like other women can.
100%.
Like, agents of the patriarchy can be any gender in the spectrum.
Anybody can be hateful.
The patriarchy likes division of genders and subjugation of genders, but it doesn't discriminate in Who is like serving the patriarchy?
The patriarchy knows no gender when it's looking for a willing vessel.
We have to remember, and honestly I feel like women can get away with saying a lot more vicious, awful shit than men can.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel entitled to do so.
I'd agree with that.
Just something to keep in mind.
No, no, no, absolutely.
The short version here is that his audience is eating it up with a spoon.
I'm going to get into what the future of Russell Brand's content looks like, but needless to say, for the most part, he's going to retain his audience.
He just is.
I would also like to point out that the evidence that Brand supposedly has that refutes these allegations is not provided.
The Times asked his lawyers but got no response.
Curious.
Yeah, because he seemed very specific.
Oh, yeah.
I've got evidence.
I've got witnesses.
I've got all this.
I mean, but it's all a conspiracy.
Zulu. Okay, buddy. Um, are we going to talk about the Rogan of it all in the
statement?
It's just, I feel like it at least bears, like it, that was a really crazy thing for me.
I heard the statement.
Far away.
Far away.
You have thoughts.
Well, I just, I mean, I think that it would be frustrating if I were a listener to be like, let's just address the elephant in a third of, like, it's so wildly inappropriate and, like, out of pocket to compare this scenario with, like, Joe Rogan making like...
Spurious and unfounded health claims.
It's just apples and oranges?
Yeah.
Like it's just out of left, that sounded so wacky to me.
And so just like off base and you know, like bait and switchy.
In terms of severity, they are light years apart.
Yeah, absolutely.
Joe Rogan being a shithead is one thing, but this isn't Joe Rogan being credibly accused of rape.
That's a different fucking scenario.
And there's like a minimizing effect in mentioning that and also like trying to pretend that his, you know, his like nemeses of the WHO and CDC are somehow behind this is like, It's such a stretch.
He never specifies.
He never specifies that it's any particular organization, which is how he operates.
It's, oh, they are coming to get me.
And you can just insert your favorite villain.
For some of his audience, that's going to be the Deep State.
For some of his audience, that's going to be The Jews.
For some of his audience, that's going to be China.
For some of them, it's going to be the MSM.
For some, it will be the CDC.
It's a classic tactic.
It just felt like a redirect for the things that he's comfortable bitching about, more so than what is clearly making him very uncomfortable.
In the same breath comparing himself to Rogan, so you know, just lifting him up just that little bit more as well.
It's very loaded.
Oh yeah.
Very loaded.
And weird.
So.
I just couldn't, like, we just gotta address the big obvious thing.
Yeah, no no no.
That's fine.
And then we can go forward.
Without further ado, I am going to present to you the first clip from the Dispatches Special.
Unlike the documentary, I'm going to deal with them in chronological order for the most part because I always just find that easier to digest.
So first up is a girl under the pseudonym Alice.
Some of these clips are a bit longer than we usually do, but I don't want to edit or cut up the story or be accused of malicious editing or any of that shit.
By April 2006, Russell Brand was in great demand.
full content warning here for almost all the clips I'm going to play. They will be graphic,
detailed and disturbing to listen to.
By April 2006, Russell Brand was in great demand.
Away from the limelight, at the age of 30, he was starting a relationship with 16-year-old Alice.
I had a friend that worked in the Leicester Square building that housed MTV.
be.
(gentle music)
I was coming out of that studio and Russell was coming in.
He saw me and he'd asked what my business was there.
I'd just been to Topshop.
He took the shopping bags from my hands and picked a dress out and he said, OK, you're going to wear that on a date with me.
I remember wearing, you know, a red wiggle dress and big platform shoes and had my hair blown out and was wearing makeup, but I didn't look like a woman by any means.
I was a child that had got dressed up for dinner.
It was overwhelming, but I did feel, yeah, I liked him and I felt a bit giddy.
I felt special.
I woke up to text messages from him saying that he dreamt that we were married and how happy it had made him.
Looking back on the relationship, which started consensually, Alice now feels she was controlled by Brand.
He would later joke on stage about his techniques with women.
I can pretend to be nice for a little bit of time.
You know, at the beginning of a relationship, pretending to be nice.
I'm quite nice.
I nod a lot.
I'm quite nice.
Yeah, come round my house.
Yeah, we'll just watch a video.
No, it's all right.
I'll sleep on the sofa.
Right, pretending to be nice.
Yeah, no, it's all right.
We'll just cuddle.
No, we'll just kiss a bit.
That's all right.
No, I'm not even that interested in sex.
We'll just come.
I'll just kiss.
Yeah, let's watch Wonderful Life on the video.
The Nobstacle Course, I call that.
I met up with him.
We walked through the door, and then again, things got very intense, very, very quickly.
He was like, so how many people have you had sex with?
And I said, no one.
Like, I've never had sex with anyone.
And he got an erection straight away.
And he was like, oh my God, he's like my baby, my baby, and picked me up and cradled me in his arms like a child and was stroking my hair.
And he's like, you're like my little dolly.
Um, so this would be like, yeah, yeah, immediately fucking creepy.
So this would be like me being in a relationship with a 16 year old, the thought of which turns my fucking stomach.
Right.
Brand was seeing Alice for about three months.
She was recovering from an eating disorder and had never had a boyfriend.
He'd gotten her to save him in her phone as Carly, so her parents wouldn't suspect.
Alice later told her mother, and her mum made Alice text Brand to reiterate her age, assuming that it would put him off.
It didn't.
Her mother was very upset, but didn't feel like she could control who her daughter saw.
At one point, he even sent a car to her school to take her out of lessons in order to go and see him.
The driver apparently begged her not to go into Bran's house.
The driver said that she was the same age as his daughter.
He said, please, I'm asking you not to go in there.
You could be my little girl and I would want someone to do this for her.
She, of course, went in anyway, remarking that the driver's eyes looked sad.
I wonder why.
Yeah, there is nothing easy about any of this, and I wouldn't blame you for not having much to comment on thus far, other than it just being creepy.
Well, it's a weird, like, oh, I could write a book?
And also, it's stunning to listen to.
Like, I could scream, petition the sky just based on that alone.
It's so hard because it does take you back to a time when you were a teenager and trying to be independent and try out your adulthood.
Yeah, yeah.
Cause you're 16, you fucking know everything.
Because that's just how you are at 16.
That's definitely how I was.
You don't even know enough to know that you know everything.
Like, you're just like, I don't know.
Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
But yeah, you're just fucking full of beans and independent and like, No, I know everything about everything.
Well, specifically with his comedy, what he tried to make excuses with was like, oh, I talk about it in my books, I'm too open.
And so he's kind of trying to take the venom out of anyone pointing to his material as evidence of a pattern, which is tough because like, I'm gonna reference his books later on, actually.
Right.
There are a couple of things.
Well, something that, like, and this is a thing that I had around for entertainment as a child, Bill Cosby had a whole bit, a track named Spanish Fly, which was a date rape drug, and that was, like, that's how normal This type of thing in this behavior was that you could make light of it to a point where people can relate and understand that.
I didn't know that when I was a kid, obviously.
But sometimes you're just hiding in plain sight and that's a problem.
Like trying to, you know, especially like, Rappers have an issue with people, or if they're ever in court and they're kind of tangled up in something, using your lyrics against you in court is like, meh.
A lot of rappers are poets.
You're evoking a feeling and you're telling a story.
So it's hard to nail it down.
I do understand, but I would say...
I would say just wait for the repeated instances, is all I'm gonna say.
Well, I think that's the evidence that we're looking for to refute, you know, the artistic license argument.
Yeah, no, these are not just one-off things.
The connection seems Telling, and it'll become clear.
We're getting ahead of ourselves.
It'll become clear.
Don't worry.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be sad, but I don't think I'm going to be that surprised.
Here is clip two of Alice.
Russell engaged in the behaviours of a groomer.
Looking back on it, I didn't even know what that was then or what that looked like.
He would try to drive a wedge between me and my parents, taught me to lie to them.
I was at my dad's house and it was 11 o'clock at night.
Russell was texting me, he's like, please come over, I need to see you, I'm really upset, like, I need to see you.
And I said, I can't, it's late.
He came up with a scenario where my friend was ill, and he made me do these role-play conversations with him.
He was like, okay, I'm gonna be your dad, and you be you, and he would correct me as we went along.
He's like, no, you can't say that, your dad's gonna say this.
He had a whole script for me.
Alice recalls how Bran made her feel after she'd had sex with him for the first time.
When everything was over, one of his friends came round to the house.
They both drove me to the tube station.
I felt like a little kid being dropped off somewhere.
He reached his hand behind the car seat and was holding my hand behind the seat like my mum does when she's in the car.
And it made me feel like, yeah, I felt very small.
I felt like a little kid.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Can I go in?
Yeah, of course you can.
Sorry.
I don't know why that's the bit.
I missed that.
She said, could I have a minute?
Alice has stated that Brand became preoccupied with her innocence and purity.
Over the following weeks, he would refer to her as the Child, and asked her to read Nabokov's Lolita.
Mm-hmm.
If that's not a fucking red flag, I don't know what is.
He told her not to trust her friends or talk to them about him because they'd all be looking to make money from it.
As she's mentioned, this is all groomer behaviors to an extreme degree.
Yeah.
It's so hard to, like, hear, like, it's so hard to relate, you know?
Yeah.
Like hearing your dumb teenage thoughts being repeated back to you and like, and you know, just how vulnerable you are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, it's heartbreak.
It's obviously.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like, duh.
It's heartbreaking.
It's absolutely heartbreaking.
And it's also hard to hear how those same behaviors are serving him perfectly well with his followers today and with the people that listen to him today.
Mm hmm.
You know, like telling, telling people, like conditioning people to believe that he is the ultimate authority, that he knows better than everybody else.
And if someone isn't agreeing with you to throw them away, like that's just so typical.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, he's done the same thing all his life.
He's just doing it in a new way with his audience.
He's doing it towards media rather than just one human being that he gets to fuck.
Instead, he gets to fuck millions of them at once.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a scattershot.
He can just distribute it.
Yep.
Yeah.
Pretty fucking grim.
Clip three of Alice.
I didn't feel like I could advocate for myself in any way, and I also didn't feel like I could argue with a grown-up.
I'd only been seeing him a couple of months.
I remember he ran a bath for me, and he made me sit in the bath.
Then he said he had to leave, but I should stay in the bath for the entirety of him being gone.
It was long enough for me to get cold.
I got out of the bath and put a towel on.
I was like, OK, I'll just... When I hear the door go or the phone go, I'll just jump back in.
He was very pleased and elated when he came home and I was still in the bath.
Then picked me up and dried me off and then wrapped me up in a robe and, like, put me on the sofa.
A family member has confirmed that Alice was having a relationship with Brand at this time.
Those words just came up on the screen there.
I didn't feel like I could argue with a grown-up.
That sentence has stuck with me.
Like, yeah.
It's so real.
It's so real.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And that's what kind of puts it into harsh perspective.
You know, this was a fucking child.
Like, yes, it's legal, but it's not the same as moral.
The Bath thing is obviously manipulative, controlling behavior, and what's most obvious here is that it's not even the sexual gratification he's necessarily interested in, it's the power dynamic.
The imbalance of power is what he thrives on and craves.
Honest degrading.
Yes.
Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
And that's that's wrapped up in there.
Unfortunately, the next clip explicitly details sexual assault and really illustrates the power imbalance that Brand was craving.
Things took a slightly darker turn.
I was sat up in the bed up against the headboard, and he forced his penis down my throat, and I couldn't breathe.
It was just choking me, and I couldn't breathe.
I was pushing him away, pushing him away, and he wasn't backing off at all.
And so I ended up having to punch him really hard in the stomach to get him off.
And then he, like, finally, then he, like, moved, fell backwards, and I was crying, and he said, oh, I only want to see your mascara run anyway.
Them blowjobs wear mascara runs, a little bit.
Good.
We're too much saliva, he's got a lot of spit.
No, I wouldn't suggest it, that would be horrible.
If I suggested it, no, that's improper.
Even in the joke, he knows it's wrong.
Can't even let it hang long enough for the joke.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that was always his thing of, you know, being taboo, of pushing boundaries.
I dare say I don't think he understands what a boundary is.
I think he understands really well because he knows exactly where they are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he enjoys crossing them so much.
Yeah, exactly.
He's very boundary focused, even.
Yeah, yeah, not in a positive way.
There's nothing easy about this and I'm loathe to say that it gets worse.
We have one final Alice clip.
After that I just said that I wanted to go to sleep so I just like laid on one side of the bed and then that was when he got on top of me and Held, like, my mouth open, I was just, like, drooling into my mouth, and I was gagging, and, like, I was, like, trying to fight him off me, but he's laying on top of me, so I can't, like, my limbs are trapped underneath him.
It is my humble view that there ain't a single sexual act from the humble wank right up to the sexual apotheosis that is bumming that ain't enhanced by spitting.
There's literally no joke there.
That is just a sex tip.
[LAUGHTER]
And then he held my mouth shut and made me swallow it.
And so I was just like gagging and crying.
I remember just at that point feeling like everything was very dark.
I didn't know why he even wanted me there, because it didn't seem like... Even doing that stuff didn't seem like it was making him happy.
He just seemed angry the whole time.
And he seemed angry with me.
And I didn't know what I'd done.
Like, you can hear in that one sentence that this woman blames herself.
She blamed herself in the moment because she was essentially still a child, and she has carried that with her ever since.
The clips from the comedy specials are from 2006, that same year, by the way.
It feels very much like he was telling us all along, doesn't it?
Yeah, well, and he's a heavy smoker as well, by the way, or he was back then.
So, yeah, just to just have that color in there for you.
Well, you know, and I feel for her parents as far as like how to manage this situation, because Yeah, her mom still struggles with it today.
I wish I'd done more, but I know what I was like at 16.
trying to control me would have been fucking impossible.
You know, it's, it's such a turd.
Well, and I don't remember which story I was listening to about what lately, but just,
I'm annoyed that I can't think of it, but there was a story of a parent explaining how
gingerly they had to manage this kind of problem with their kid.
Mm.
And, cause you don't want to push them over the edge into lying and not telling you anything, cause that can also happen.
Hello?
Present.
I did that one I shouldn't have.
Super common.
Super duper common.
Also, keeping the communication lines open makes a big difference.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, yeah.
You know, and so it's hard to... it's just heartbreaking because, like, especially... so also, like, the age of consent is 16 across the board in the UK, correct?
Yeah.
Okay.
Cause it varies in the states.
Yeah.
Cause you, you, you have state laws, whereas we, we, um, we, we don't know that there are kind of, uh, uh, variables, um, in terms of like Scottish law and Irish, you know, that, that kind of thing, Northern Irish, um, that kind of thing.
But, but yeah, 16, um, is the, is the age of consent here.
Right.
Yeah.
Like in California, you can marry a baby as long as the parents can, like, there is no limit to who you can marry.
That's insane.
Yeah, I mean, you can get married at 16 here as well with the parents' consent, but not before that.
Well, but I just, I feel like that's, I don't know, I think that maybe there are way less excuses that are thrown out casually these days.
But, you know, when we were growing up, when I was growing up, like, the conversation was worse.
And just, Like, using legality to excuse this kind of behavior is, um, it's just, it's not enough.
And really, like, our legal system is inadequate to handle this type of thing.
It's one of the things that Russell said upon first going to dinner with this girl was, um, I don't give a fuck if you're 12 years old, I need to know where I stand legally.
That's all he cared about was, you know, how young can you be while I'm still legally in the clear?
And that's pretty evident.
So, Alice and Brand's relationship ended when Brand invited her over one day and she arrived to find him with another woman in his bed.
She said, quote, I was so angry and I said to him, why would you do this to me?
This is so humiliating.
Unquote.
So he invited her over specifically for her to see that.
Even in ending the relationship he wanted one last power kick.
Alice has decided to speak out because she now believes that she was too young to be able to consent to a relationship with an adult man and the law should be changed to protect people under 18.
I'd say I don't disagree.
You know, shit like this should not be allowed to happen.
Well, there are people that are pushing for like Blanket 18 across the board in America as well.
Yeah.
I don't think it should even just extend to a limit on the age of consent.
I think there should also be a question of You know, age gaps.
I think that's a serious fucking issue when it comes to groomers.
You know, that's something that somehow needs addressing.
I don't know how.
I'm not a legislator.
I'm not clear on how to deal with that.
And it's going to be a fucking minefield, but something needs to be done because this is just absurd.
And it happens now!
Fucking Wilma Valderrama, that 70s show, you know.
It happens.
I mean, it's a real... Okay, if we're thinking about the scope of the problem, I can't handle that universe.
No, it's staggering.
And it's a real problem, and it's not even being addressed.
Even in the conversations around this, it is not being addressed.
Yeah, well, and we talked just a little bit before recording, and I think that...
I think it bears, I think it still very much affects the conversation today that like the conversation has changed so much.
Yeah.
In such a short period of time.
And I do feel like, but not to say, it's just like people are like, oh, slavery was a product of his time.
No, there were abolitionists and there were people that were saying it was wrong even then.
And just because they were ignored or pushed aside doesn't mean that they weren't right.
And so maybe let's I am concerned that there was a very different attitude and conversation.
I noticed that was pretty repugnant and I saw it when I was 16, 17 years old.
Yeah.
And I was like, man, this is pretty gross.
I don't like this.
Like it, this seems too much.
Um, and especially, I do think that like, as you get older, I don't think that you can have that perspective on like, wow, Man, all these movies and TV were like super fucked up.
Um, you don't know.
And as you get older, you get that perspective and like kind of like throwing kids to the wolves.
Yeah.
For the sake of, for the sake of what?
You know, like it's just, and it's, it's a cycle that's gonna perpetuate itself.
And I, uh, I don't know.
I'm I I worry that a big show will be made as like this person being rather than justice being done
there will be a scapegoating almost like a you know like a sin eater like oh well
society in general in 2006 um was was pretty terrible to 16 and 17 year old girls okay yeah
and so there's this whole environment that I think people want to absolve themselves
by coming out extra hard against one reprehensible individual without examining the the culpability
of a larger conversation that was at best not.
not taking this kind of behavior to task and calling it a joke and saying it's no big deal and get over it and like yeah this is what happens about good like when you're like get over it this is what happens this is the result i've i've i've discussed this on the podcast before but you know i've got a friend i've got a friend who at 14 was groomed by a 27 year old You know, and at that time, I remember thinking, huh, that's fucked up.
That's weird.
How is this?
How is this kind of allowed to happen?
That's something about that's not right.
And she would always say to me, oh, no, no, it's fine.
It's OK.
He's OK.
He's OK.
Later, turns out he's not fucking OK.
And it never was.
You know, and yeah, we we knew it at the time.
We did.
We did.
We knew that.
We just we just didn't fucking do anything about it.
Well, or just like anybody, like the shouting down was loud.
It was loud and persistent.
I'm not blaming us for not doing anything about it.
I'm saying we as a society didn't do anything about it.
Because I'm confident that we as a society, we as a society knew that this was wrong.
You know, it's not that we didn't know that.
We did.
We were just, yeah.
Anyway.
Next, we have a clip that references 2014, because this is when the person came out with the allegations, but the incident in question is from 2007, so a year after Alice.
A year later, for the first time, a sexual allegation about Brand is made public.
His former girlfriend, Jordan Martin, published a book under a thinly disguised pseudonym, revealing intimate details of their relationship, which she describes as controlling and manipulative.
The book contains her description of an incident where he got angry and then sexually assaulted her.
He slides his hand down the front of her low-hanging jeans into her underwear and forces a finger inside of her.
She is not ready for this intrusion, nor does she find it sensual or pleasant.
Jordan also told her story to the Mail on Sunday.
But when the newspaper printed, the reference to the assault had been removed.
She says she believes the newspaper was asked to take out the line.
The headline is Russell Bright is a misogynist who hurt me and abused me.
Good.
Jordan didn't want to take part in this film, but stands by her allegations.
I'm annoyed with myself, because in researching the first part of our Russell Brand primer, I did come across the article that was just mentioned, but it seemed somewhat toothless and light on details, and I wanted to paint as factual a picture as I could.
We talked about it after we recorded, too.
Yeah, we did.
We spoke about it afterwards, and I wish I'd kept it in.
And I wish even more that the Mail on Sunday had the stones to publish the story in full.
I mean, that's more evidence of, like, how underreported, like, even just, like, you know, not using, like, using more acceptable or, like, less aggressive language when discussing When discussing rape, you know, like you don't want to be triggering for people because a lot, unfortunately, a lot of people do experience some kind of sexual violence in their life.
So you want to be sensitive to folks that are dealing with it.
Among women that we know, it's one in three.
That we know.
I think it's higher, personally.
I, um, in my unscientific anecdotal experience I'd say at least half, personally, from my experience, but there you are.
Yeah, me too!
But that's the thing, you don't want to be hurtful, but there is a degree of journalistic standards in protecting victims.
it's a very difficult line to tread. And so, I can't imagine.
I don't know.
Maybe it's no one's fault.
I think in some in some instances like or it's just you can't really assign blame because there's like, okay, do we not want to be like triggering and aggressive or are we using Words and descriptors that are, um, you know, kind of like pulled back or like are, are, are obfuscating the seriousness of the situation.
And it's really hard.
I mean, like I would, there's like a tiny little betrayal that we've experienced in real time.
Like we tried to report on something you tried to investigate and like, The whole conversation was like, that sounds weird, and you're like, yeah, I couldn't find anything that I felt was supported enough that rose to my specifications of what's corroborating.
Yeah, a standard of proof of any kind.
Yeah, and, you know, the real fucking failure there, I think, is the Mail on Sunday, personally.
You know, because had this been published properly at the time, I don't know, something could have been different somewhere.
Yeah, there's a lot.
Well, and you hear it's the same thing all over the place.
Like, it's the Jeffrey Epstein story, the Harvey Weinstein story.
There's a lot of reporting that gets watered down.
Through, you know, sometimes no fault of the journalist or, you know, it's like there's it's an editorial choice or there's, you know, a decision comes down from on high or it's a legal issue.
I feel like that's a big thing, especially in the UK.
The laws are so much more strict as far as like journalistic kind of Yes, kind of.
And we will get into that a little bit later, because there is a point that I want to raise.
But before I forget, there's something that I forgot to write down, and that is about the people in this documentary being anonymous, for the most part.
I think there was one that wasn't.
Most of the people who've come forward have decided to remain anonymous, in some cases using actors instead of them kind of presenting their words.
But the words are very much their own.
And one of the kind of narratives I've seen is, oh, it's no great surprise they're all anonymous, is it?
And to which I say, no, it's not a great surprise, because if they weren't anonymous, then they would be harassed and hounded by the media first, right?
They would have the tabloids going through and pouring through their entire existence.
And then they would have all of Russell Brand's fucking followers to contend with who would be accusing them of being actors or whatever else.
They would be harassed and possibly put in literal physical danger if they came forward because of the rabidity of that man's audience.
So no, I don't fucking blame them for staying anonymous.
I would too!
Well, and anonymous sources.
That's the thing is, much like do your own research, anonymous source is another totally valid journalistic device that's been undermined by this crazy misinformation sphere.
We've always had anonymous sources, and journalists understand why.
Now, journalists, they're not anonymous to the journalist.
They're not anonymous to the investigators.
Those people are still doing all the journalistic stuff of vetting and cross-checking and corroborating, but they're just not publishing someone's name, so they're not a target.
That's what they're supposed to do, and I will say we've encountered this many times on this show, but the fucking sub-stack journalists who just make shit up, who have an anonymous source, but obviously no editorial fucking stuff to look into anything or make sure that something is definitely, verifiably true, like, they are undermining The entirety of what an anonymous source is.
Because they're just making shit up.
They just are.
Exactly.
That's my point.
It's so difficult.
It's so difficult because of that.
With these people from alternative media undermining what media is supposed to be.
And then they attack the mainstream and say, oh, you know, anonymous sources.
And it's because you're doing that, you shitheels.
Well yeah, this person has had to recount their story to a journalist, to investigators, corroborate what they're saying, and it's still a person who is accountable.
There's a legal tie versus like, you can say anonymous source if you're just being a misinformation entertainer, and it can be a fucking tweet.
No, absolutely.
That happens all the time.
This is different.
This is legitimate, established, fucking journalists doing their job properly.
Because they're also legally obligated!
Yes!
There are tangible legal consequences, unlike Russell saying whatever on YouTube and Rumble, because he's like, well, I'm gonna, you know, whatever, like that, he can excuse and leave it away, just like Tucker, just like Alex Jones, whatever, but like a journalist Well, like Michael fucking Schellenberger and his Michael Schellenberger and his fucking public sub stack.
He does this all the time on there.
Oh, we've got an anonymous source in this.
Shut up.
No, you don't.
You fucking liar.
It's honestly embarrassing to see adults do that.
I'm furious.
Right.
Well, but I just, I want to make that totally clear for anyone listening because I feel like we, I, I'd rather be too thorough because we're gonna get all of the, all of the excuses.
I've had to deal with that.
I've, I've had to deal with that one today.
Um, already, you know, and, and, and there are just going to be more coming out, you know?
I want y'all to have the tools to be able to talk about this stuff and, If you just think the way to critically think about it, that source is not just a tweet that somebody's saying.
That source, they can be sued if anything is wrong with the story.
That's a tangible consequence.
Not to mention, in the case of an actual journalist, their career is on the line.
If they take themselves anywhere near fucking seriously, which some journalists still do, believe it or not, their career is on the line.
Their credibility as a journalist is on the line.
To some people that really matters.
Just like how mad we are at Jacobin, like, what are you doing?
There's a whole credibility issue.
Like, why are you casting a pallor on everything I've ever read from you?
New York Times!
Because of this shit!
New York Times.
Big time.
Big time.
Fucking hell.
Big time.
Yeah!
Right.
Absolutely ridiculous.
So, the next woman... Also, maybe I'm sandbagging, because this is tough.
Yeah, we're just bolstering this, because it's a lot.
Let's get into it.
Let's keep at it.
Probably one of the worst.
So the next woman who's come forward is under the pseudonym Nadia, and she's being portrayed by an actor in this case, but the words are her own.
July 1st 2012 was when my rape happened.
I was out late and he happened to call me and say, I've had a really bad day.
Please come over.
And I, at first I said, no, I'm not going.
It's late.
And he's like, please come, just come and cuddle with me.
So then I gave in and I'm like, okay.
The door was unlocked.
I just walked into his place.
He comes running out of the bedroom naked.
He came at me with kisses and stuff, which was kind of fun.
And then it wasn't that fun when I couldn't move, or I knew what he wanted from me at that point.
He pushed me up against the wall.
I'm like, what are you doing?
And he's like, I have a friend here and I want you to come into the bedroom.
I'm like, no, that's not happening.
We're not doing that.
And I tried to get away from him.
I slipped away from the wall.
I went to another wall that had a painting on it, a huge painting.
My bag got actually stuck underneath that and it's still on my arm.
And at this point, he's grabbing at my, my underwear, pulling it to the side.
I'm telling him to get off me and he won't get off.
And he has that glazed look in his eye again.
I was very distraught trying to get out of the house with him being so much taller than me, like holding me up against the wall, pushing himself in me.
I couldn't move.
And he finally comes and gets off of me and I push him away.
He blocks the door.
He's like, are you okay?
I'm like, no, I'm not okay.
Get away from me.
And he's like, well, let's calm down.
I ran out and I jumped in my car.
I was in a daze.
I'm sorry, that was crazy and selfish.
I hope you can forgive me.
I know that you're a lovely person.
Text from Russell.
Journalists for this film have confirmed this text was sent from Russell Brand's number.
Nadia replied later that morning.
I'm going to read the full text here from Nadia to Russell, and then the rest of the exchange which wasn't included in the Dispatches episode.
So, Bran's initial text saying sorry was sent at 3.29am, and her response was at 10.59am.
Quote, You scared the shit out of me.
You're right, I am a lovely person, and for you to take advantage of me like that is unexpectable.
You have a problem, you need help.
It's dangerous that you think you can get your own way all the time.
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?
Last time you asked me condom or no condom.
When I say condom, that doesn't mean it's optional.
You don't have the best reputation and I pride myself on being safe and trying to make the right decisions.
Obviously this was a bad one.
I'm so disappointed."
Another case of the victim blaming herself right off the bat.
Russell responded, quote, I'm so sorry.
You don't need to get tested.
I will make this up to you somehow with love and kindness.
Not my original idea, which was more sex.
You have been lovely to me and I'm embarrassed by my behavior.
Sorry.
And then after no response, a text later on asking, will you ever forgive me?
This question becomes something of a theme for Russell as he's not really asking forgiveness.
He wants someone to say they'll forgive him so he can feel in the clear, but most importantly, so that he can guilt trip and shame them into never speaking to anyone about the incident.
If they ever wanted to, he could just say, oh, but I thought you'd forgiven me for that.
And I'd like to reiterate, finally, that the US number that Brand was using has been verified as his by multiple sources.
So, this conversation happened.
Uh, do...
Do we know...
Do they talk about how old she was in this situation?
I can't remember.
Adult woman.
There's not another kind of case of underageness happening.
I guess I'm still curious what the age gap is.
Yeah, that's entirely fair.
I think this was someone much closer in that respect, if memory serves.
I mean, you know, it's hard to think about, like, But even without the age power imbalance, there's still, you know, this was a power imbalance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because this was 2012.
So, you know, this was he was pretty much peak of his fame at this stage.
You know, this was not that long after getting to the Greek, I think, what, July 2012.
Yeah.
That would have been just after things with Katy Perry blew up.
So yeah, definitely still a fame kind of imbalance there.
He always had the power.
Well, the physical power is like what you don't necessarily think about.
Yeah, no, no, no, it's true.
That's true.
As like, because he's a skinny, you know, skinny, reedy person.
But like, that doesn't fucking matter.
Um, and I don't know, it's, it's just, I'm, you know, as a person who's like, almost six feet tall, it's hard to hear like, Oh, wow.
I think I probably slipped out of some situations because I'm big and mean.
And like, it's hard to listen to what could have, you know, I don't know, you think about everyone in your life that has to deal with this and like, there's a, there's a literal physical power imbalance.
I mean, I'm six foot two and big and strong and all that, and I have been the victim of this twice.
So, you know, there are situational kind of factors to that.
There are so many factors that were even even kind of size and strength doesn't save you.
Oh, of course.
Of course.
I'm just saying like, even then, that's not even a, that's not what I'm, I'm not, I guess.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It's a question of like, how much worse it could have been.
Yeah.
Cause yeah, I've definitely, I've been in situations where like, you know, you can be incapacitated a number of ways.
Yeah, absolutely.
I do think that it definitely acts as a deterrent.
People are less likely to try if you see him, you know.
Yeah, like you shouldn't be fucked with.
But this actually ties quite well into the second half of Nadia's story, so we should get to that.
It just makes me feel for people.
That same day, Nadia went to a local rape treatment center to report what had happened.
She underwent tests, was given antibiotics and emergency contraception.
They took my underwear and obviously the samples.
Nadia gave staff this detailed account of the incident.
Pause this here, actually, just to read out what the statement says.
So it says, according to victim, he then pushed her up against the wall, separated her legs with his leg, moved her underwear to the side and vaginally penetrated her, ejaculating inside her once he was finished.
She reported that the situation for her was even more complicated due to the assailant's celebrity status.
She decided not to go to the police.
(bell ringing)
I was just too scared.
I didn't want to put my family through that, let alone me through that, with him being famous.
When I went in for one of my first therapy sessions, I literally couldn't say the word rape.
I had to keep saying sexually assaulted, but By the end of it, I was like, oh my God, he raped me.
Well, um, yeah.
Okay.
Tidbit I forgot to mention just before, sorry, in my personal case, one of the perpetrators was female as well, by the way, just to say that.
Well, but you know what she just said, like, oh, yeah, that was my exact experience.
Yeah, right, right.
No, 100%.
100%.
There's a denial aspect in if you don't have to say the word, it's not real.
When attending the Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, Nadia provided her underwear and other samples as evidence which were frozen.
An LAPD officer was notified by the center, but she chose not to make a report saying to the center that she, quote, didn't think my words would mean anything up against his, unquote.
I wonder.
Nadia had therapy at the clinic for the next five months.
She considered criminal and civil proceedings, but ultimately decided against it.
She did later write Brand a letter, however, and sent it to his house.
She said, quote, "...do you know what you put me through?
My body through?
You scared the shit out of me on July 1st.
I thought any situation, I would be strong enough to fight someone off.
You completely broke me down."
Unquote.
Six weeks later, Brand would perform at the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony in London.
So hey, there's that.
I do also very much want to emphasize that, like, thinking you can fight somebody off There's no guarantee in this world.
Hell no.
Not at all.
Thinking that you're the one that can get away.
No one ever plans on being in this situation.
No one plans on getting raped.
There's no preparation for this. There is no... I am... I mean, even teaching women's self-defense,
There is, you know, like that being this huge, like social push is really like, yeah, do that.
But, um, because also like practice, you know, making things into, you know, like being able to escape as a form of muscle memory is absolutely effective, but maybe that's not where socially where we need to put the energy, you know, like.
Yeah, no, I don't think women should be given more responsibility in dealing with this, to be honest.
That's just my personal take.
And yeah, there's also the factor of, you know, your state of mind in the moment might mean regardless how physically trained you are, you might just break down a bit because, you know, your emotions affect how your body responds to things.
There's a million factors.
Yeah, absolutely.
And there's the potential of underestimating someone like Russell Brand who doesn't look overwhelmingly physical.
It's probably part of the total package of the lure.
Seems harmless.
Yeah, I'm just this little waif of a, you know, like, I'm this waifish fop, so I'm not gonna be, like, honestly, these descriptions, I can absolutely imagine a scenario where this woman is recounting her story, and it's difficult for someone to believe if they don't understand They don't have a better understanding of these types of situations.
Like it seems so easy to, it's just so easy to write this shit off.
Yeah.
Especially in like, I'm thinking about, you know, 2012, 2006, all these moments in time.
2012, 2006, all these moments in time.
You think 10 years back. - Shit was way worse.
It's still not great right now.
But man, oh man, we have come a long way.
And not all of us, but a lot of us have.
Genuinely, it's observable to me.
Yeah, no, no, no.
To me as well.
To me as well.
You know what I mean?
It's incredible.
Right.
Our fourth victim.
Trying to find a silver lining wherever I can.
There might be one, but it's not going to happen yet.
So our fourth victim goes by the name of Phoebe, and her story takes place a year later, so
in 2013.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I moved to LA.
I moved out here just for chasing my dreams.
I met him at an AA meeting and he pursued me like right away.
This woman's story is being told by an actor.
The words spoken are her own.
I slept with him willingly.
Like, for the record, willingly.
He sold me a dream.
Very manipulative.
Very, like, you know, you're the greatest thing.
Like, wanna, you know, have my babies.
Ridiculous shit.
But nothing, like, nothing further.
Sometime after their first sexual encounter, Phoebe says Brand called her and asked her to work with him.
I, of course, am like just so, you know, big break, eager, like, yes, of course.
So I took the job and it went really well.
He had me on for a long period.
We did a lot of stuff together.
He'd have a comedy show and, like, would invite a bunch of us, and, like, my friends would come.
It became what felt like a friendship.
Everything we did work-wise revolved around his sexual behaviour with other people, and because I had slept with him, it was like... ..it didn't hurt, but it hurt, you know?
I've just never seen any man have power and, like, manipulation over women.
Like, I watched this guy, I mean, pulled women out of the audience, kicking us out of his dressing room and fucking them in the dressing room, you know?
Just revolving door of women every day.
I mean, five-plus women a day.
Just absolute mayhem.
The reality of this happening in a place of work is nothing short of stunning.
I do also want to make it crystal clear at this stage that while their relationship was sexual to begin with, it stopped being sexual fairly quickly and from there they were purely professional and maintained a friendship, right?
Um, so while they were working on this show, they weren't an item sexually or otherwise.
Um, yeah.
Um, she said something about like, well, I, I do want to mention that, um, AA came up, um, in our primer we've, he's been sober since 2002 or 2003.
2002.
2002.
December 2002 he went to rehab.
Yeah, so I think it's just worth a mention.
Yeah, not a lick of alcohol, no drugs, all of these decisions that he's making, he was stone cold fucking sober.
So that's not an excuse.
That excuse is not available to this man.
It's not an excuse anyway.
It's an explanation, which is not an excuse.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And the behavior, which seems consistent, is like, I want to marry you, let's have babies, blah, blah, blah.
Love bombing, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That's very typical, like, love bombing behavior.
Also, just to draw her in, even to just, like, because she was his assistant, right?
Yeah, kind of.
It was a professional relationship.
Yeah, she worked on the show as an assistant of some kind.
But yeah, it was a professional relationship.
Yeah, the love bombing is very consistent and that is a kind of trademark manipulator slash abuser kind of tactic.
Which he outlined himself in that bit!
Marilyn Manson's been accused of as well.
Yes, yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely.
Right, so, thus far, there's been some gross behaviour, including using an AA meeting to hunt for women to fuck, but nothing illegal, right?
That changes in the next clip.
Phoebe remembers working at Bran's house before they left to go to a show.
They were running late, so Phoebe left her belongings behind.
We came home together in the same car.
Bye for now.
And we came back to the house and I was like, OK, cool, I'll go pack up and I'll leave.
Then the assistant left to run an errand.
And without me realising it, I was left alone with him at the house.
He came into the room.
I can't remember if he was naked or if he was in underwear, but he ended up naked at some point.
And he started, like, chasing me.
I was almost laughing because I was like, there's no way this is happening.
And it got a little more aggressive.
And then I think I realised this is not a joke.
Like, this is really... He's really serious.
And I went to walk back out to get out of the bedroom and the door had been locked, which I hadn't seen him do.
And he grabbed me and got me on the bed.
I was fully clothed and he was naked at this point.
And he held me down and he was just aggressively trying to, you know, fuck me.
And I saw something come over his eyes.
I swear to God, like, black.
His eyes had no more colour.
They were black.
Like a different person literally entered his body.
And I was screaming, and I was like, what are you doing?
Like, stop.
You're my friend.
I love you.
Please don't do this.
I don't want to do this.
Like, he... I think he had his hands down my trousers, but I was fighting so hard, and I was screaming so hard.
And something snapped, and he heard me, and he got off of me.
And I got up and was like, what the fuck?
And he flipped the fuck out on me, like, fuck you, you know, just like super angry.
And I'm sobbing.
I run to the front door, grab my shoes, and I run barefoot to my car.
Phoebe says some of Bran's US colleagues were outside the house, waiting for him to join a meeting.
And all the people that he had the meeting with were standing in the fucking driveway.
Years later, I ran into one of those guys on another job and he pulled me aside and he said to me, I have never forgiven myself for not running into that house to save you.
I heard you screaming and I didn't know what to do and we were all so scared of him and I didn't do anything and I'm sorry.
Journalists for this film have spoken to three people who confirmed Phoebe told them she was sexually assaulted by Russell Brand.
Phoebe is quoted as saying, I don't know what the definition of sexual assault is, but it feels like that.
He didn't rape me.
To my ear, There was both assault and sexual assault in the description of that.
When Brand flipped out at her, because she wouldn't stop saying no, he was screaming, fuck you and you're fired.
The TV person who regretted not running into the building was contacted by the Times, but never responded, unfortunately.
With any luck, he'll come forward.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Potentially, yeah.
I mean, and even who knows who's going to shake out, because this is coming out.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But also, you mentioned before, I just want to clarify at the beginning of the clip, there was nothing illegal with Phoebe specifically, even though he had absolutely raped her.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was nothing illegal with what had happened in that clip, is what I meant, with Phoebe.
Until now.
Now there is, verifiably.
Very illegal things just happened.
And someone who's maybe, like, older, has more agency, the move is, like, you can't necessarily placate them, so instead you attack.
Like, when placating doesn't work, then attack mode.
Sounds exactly like the, you know, the M.O.
in this case, was to attack and intimidate, because Saying, like, oh I didn't mean it wasn't gonna work.
No, and it says a lot that he was screaming that you're fired as well, you know, just that inherent fucking power imbalance there, you know, in this case being her employer.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's not great.
As well as everything else.
Yeah, just insane.
So our final clip of Phoebe is of the aftermath of the assault.
I then start receiving phone calls from Russell.
He's so apologetic.
Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
Please, please, please, please forgive me.
I didn't mean to.
A few days after the incident, Phoebe says she had to return to set.
She thinks Brand found out she'd told a friend about her alleged assault.
I remember Russell getting me towards the bathroom and turning the water on so nobody could hear him talking.
And was basically like, sexual assault is a serious allegation and if you're fucking serious, I need to know because you'll be hearing from my lawyer.
I don't know what I said at that point.
You know, like, I don't remember that day well at all.
I think I was in a trauma response.
I don't know if I just completely disassociated from what was happening.
I mean, it was really tough.
He was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
That is supposed to be a safe place.
That's supposed to be, like, a sanctuary.
And after that, like, I almost drank.
I was fucked up.
And I just didn't know how to process it.
I felt like I had nowhere to go.
I didn't feel safe.
It felt like I couldn't go to meetings.
I was too afraid to see him.
I never heard from him again.
I never saw him again.
I'm at peace with it.
When I think about having children, having a daughter, and how this had happened to her, you know, that's why I'm talking to you.
I also have a daughter.
Brand has two, with a third child on the way.
My feeling, personally, is that even if he is different towards his kids, no one with this pattern of behaviours of exerting dominance, pushing boundaries and breaking taboos should be left alone with young girls, especially not young girls he's related to and has inherent power over.
I wonder if his wife knows, and that's why he's never been left alone with them for 24 hours.
Just a thought.
Oh, that's a whole other spin on that thing that we found out.
Isn't it?
Jesus Christ.
I just crossed my mind.
But also what just pricked my ear is like, she's talking about how like, AAA is supposed to be a safe space, and it is.
And if he doesn't respect that, but this man, is selling recovery courses for 500 bucks a pop.
Yeah.
How safe are, like, he does guided meditations with his, like, with his followers.
They pay for it.
Like, and this person shouldn't be trusted.
I don't think we trust it alone with anyone.
No.
Like, this is, this is extreme.
Extreme.
I am shocked.
Certainly no one's female.
He's made it very clear that he's very straight.
We uncovered that in the primer as well.
But yeah, I don't know how Laura Brand would be able to be okay with him being alone with the daughters.
I don't know.
Phoebe, the victim here, didn't formally report the incident at the time because she feared for her career.
Three separate sources confirmed that she had told them about the incident at that time, and two more were also aware of it separately.
So yeah.
I mean, they could corroborate.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, they've come back.
They've they've they've found the information.
You know, they've they've found the the people to to verify that they were aware of this happening at the time.
So.
Well, and that's something that I think we also don't talk about enough, is the grooming of everyone else around, not just the victims, but everyone else in that orbit.
We discussed this a little bit in our last Off Brands, didn't we?
Because we were talking about Danny Masterson, you know, and all of that shit.
Yeah, turns out the grooming of everyone to just accept it and go along with it is a hell of a factor, especially in this case.
And do you know what?
We're actually just about to start going down that road because there are a few things that Need to be said about the culture that Russell Brand was working in at the time and the one that he actively ensured was in place.
Because one of the questions that rings in my mind through all of these stories is how the fuck any of this was allowed to happen.
And it's here that we're going to hark back a little bit to 2006, 2007, and we learn of Rachel's story.
It was only one of my first jobs, so I was very nervous.
I was a runner.
There was a real sense for me of being the baby and wanting to make an impression on everybody.
If it was a show day, either myself or the other runner was assigned to Russell, getting him into makeup, getting him on set for the show.
He had a way of... It's really hard to describe.
He had a way of making me feel like I was special.
Rachel says more senior members of the production team working for Endemol would take advantage of her friendship with Brand.
Russell used to have days where, you know, he was more approachable than other days.
And I think there was definitely an element of not wanting to rock the boat with him too much because of his association with drugs beforehand and the fact that he wasn't that long out of rehab and that he could be quite vulnerable.
If the producers or the series producer or director or anyone wanted to get a message to Russell, and it perhaps wasn't going to be taken that favorably, They would get me to go in and tell him because they knew that I would soften the blow, because they knew that he liked me, that we had a relationship, a friendship.
So it definitely felt like I became a bit of a pawn.
The beginnings of this are not great.
There is a near-institutional acceptance of the relationship between Rachel, a young fresh-faced new runner, and Russell Brand, lead presenter.
That power imbalance, along with Brand's already forged reputation of being a womanizer, should have raised an alarm at the time, but that is the exact opposite of what happened.
Senior members of the production instead used it as a tool to better manipulate Brand, Who I'm assuming wasn't easy to work with.
Using Rachel as a tool.
That was it.
Throwing her personal safety out the window in the process.
That, what she said, pawn.
Being that pawn in this type of, I mean, that hit pretty hard.
That hit home.
There's a lot of professional industry situations where I think maybe most people aren't necessarily familiar or have a lot of experience, but all this kind of shit is, is, uh, Way more common than people realize.
And there is a bit of a divide that is difficult to bridge the gap.
Like, you know, if you have like a job with an HR department and, you know, is a little more of a normal job.
I think it's hard to understand how things can escalate to this degree and the amount of emotional manipulation and like across the board again and it doesn't matter really even what gender Is doing the manipulating and being manipulated.
You know, this is especially like creative people.
If you have to work in small teams, like you can feel the difference.
It's crazy that like this feels more common to me in my personal experience and what I see people deal with to the point where when you're in a workspace, That doesn't have this kind of like crazy emotionally manipulative dynamic.
You're like, oh, oh, this is how it's supposed to feel at work.
I haven't experienced this in seven years of my job.
And now it's like, wow, crazy.
I don't feel like I'm in constant danger.
Do you know where else I've seen that dynamic is in kitchens as well.
The restaurant, the catering industry is full of shit like that.
So it's not just the creative industries, though the creative industries are fucking rife with this.
Um, with this as a problem, um, it extends to anywhere where there is kind of perhaps a, a less, um, structured kind of environment, I guess.
Um, you know, where, where you are, you know, at the whims of one or two people, possibly, um, you'll, you'll get that all throughout hospitality in general.
Um.
Yeah.
Well, and, and I, I guess I almost like lump that together as creative, just, you know, like I, there are so many similarities.
I feel like, uh, I don't know if industry nights are still a thing, but they used to be.
And like what qualified as industry, I think it started as like food and beverage industry, but kind of like encompassed a lot of other, um, yeah, like small teams, small informal You know, like, but very, I think if your workplace is intense, I think it's, you know, if you have tense moments and you have, and you do have to rely on each other to get something done, there's just a lot of
leeway for this kind of behavior to be excused.
Yeah, no, for sure.
A hundred percent.
Where there's kind of a pressure element, there is more of an acceptance of this kind of behavior.
And victims are often treated and disregarded like, well, you took the job, so that's your fault.
Like, you knew what you were getting into.
Yeah, it's supposed to be expected, apparently.
And because they are low on the totem pole, you know, of the organization, then they don't matter somehow.
It kind of doesn't matter where you are in the totem pole.
Sometimes you can be up there, but if somebody's gunning for you, they're gunning for you.
Yeah.
I hope that we're moving towards less of that being a thing.
I truly don't know if we are.
I really hope we are, because I think there is more of an awareness, but really, who knows?
Anyway, in the instance of Rachel, predictably things got darker.
It's really difficult to recall the exact moment that the line was crossed from friendship into something more.
One of the memories that is very vivid to me and will forever stick in my mind.
I think I must have gone to see what he wanted for lunch and he saw that it was me and he turned around towards me.
I wasn't incredibly close to him, but I saw that he had his penis out of his shorts or trousers and it was in his hands, and he insinuated that I might like to suck his dick.
I obviously didn't go and suck his dick, but I also was scared to rock the boat.
I was...
Incredibly shocked.
I felt very anxious.
I was scared of what the repercussions would be if somebody had found out.
Obviously he was the presenter and I was a runner.
I wasn't going to tell anyone what he'd done because I didn't want to lose my job.
So, because Endemol, the production company making the program, allowed this situation not just to occur, but to ferment and grow, Russell Brand sexually assaulted this woman and there were zero consequences because she feared for her job.
Um, I would also like to say that, you know, she said there that obviously I didn't suck his dick.
Um, but you know, that's, that's something he was willing to chance because someone might have, um, in that situation, because of the inherent power of the individual, um, that could have worked and been, been in his mind, a success.
Um, you know, uh, despite that being very obvious, um, sexual assault, uh, yeah.
Yeah, well, and it seems like he has an impulse and compulsion problem.
And what we do know from Criminal behavior is that escalation continues as long as the perpetrator is getting away with it.
Why would they stop?
What would possibly make him stop?
This is another instance of something that's like, this is adding to his mythos.
This is another cute little, like, this can be a bit Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
in a comedy special. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He changed some pieces around to make him
look less terrible, you know, just in his own presentation of the joke. And this is
what, I mean, this is what happens. One of the things that's brought up by someone in
the documentary is that, you know, anytime there are instances of him, you know, sexually
assaulting someone or kind of going down, you know, abusing staff going down these roads,
he's only ever rewarded with a promotion with more with higher status, you know, with with
more pay with with whatever.
You know, that's all that ever comes of it.
Next, we see what a master manipulator and abuser can achieve with consistent effort
when this environment is allowed to continue.
[Music]
As time went on and his flirtations grew stronger with me, I was flattered.
I'd been sucked into his world, I suppose.
He was a very intoxicating person.
Rachel says she met up with Brand outside work, and they had sex for the first time.
He made it clear to me that I couldn't tell anyone else on the crew.
It had to be a complete secret because he had it written into his contract that he wasn't allowed to have any sexual contact with anyone working on Big Brother.
A newspaper later reported that one of the conditions of Bran's hire on Big Brother was that he wouldn't sleep with anyone on the programme.
Brand himself wrote in his autobiography that before he was offered the Big Brother job, his agent, John Knoll, had to sign a contract guaranteeing he would be no trouble.
I didn't know that he had this history of sex addiction.
But they obviously did and it was enough of a concern for them to write it into his contract.
It sounds slightly dramatic but with hindsight and now as an older woman,
I can say with clarity that, you know, I felt like I was groomed for sex.
There is a responsibility of production companies.
They enabled him to That's at least three separate sources, one being Brand himself, stating that Russell Brand had a clause in his contract specifically saying that he wouldn't fuck anyone to do with Big Brother or the production.
Endemol, the production company, said they reviewed the contract and Brand didn't have a clause pertaining to sexual relationships, but they've also neglected to provide said contract.
It wouldn't surprise me if it was phrased in a very specific legal way, so what Endemol are saying might technically still be true somehow.
In any case, it's fair to say that even back in 2006, Bran's reputation was well known.
And it was 2005 that he entered treatment for sex addiction, by the way, which the production company would have been well aware of.
Which didn't take long.
Apparently not.
Yeah, that's, I was curious, I'm like, well, wait, why would you have to put an extra clause?
Like, wouldn't that just be in everyone's contract to, like, not fuck your coworkers?
Yeah.
To not infect shit where you eat?
Like, so, but I'm glad that it was clarified that, yeah, the agent was like, yeah, okay, there's a specific clause in your contract, especially, but also it might be... Especially for you.
You Brits.
It could be like a... They wear prudes.
Yeah, well, it's like, it's, it's, it's, and anything described as ooh-ah missus is unacceptable, but they don't have to say sexual assault.
Right.
Yeah.
I understand what you mean.
Yeah, it could be.
It could be written in some kind of double entendre fashion, I suppose, into the contract.
Well, it's just like, he'll be a good boy and he'll behave and he won't be any trouble.
That's so loaded.
Yeah, no, no, no.
It's, yeah, it says a lot, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So next we hear from a separate source who worked with Brand around that time.
On the next series of Big Brother's eForum in 2005, crews say they told more senior members of the production team at Endemol that they had concerns about Brand's behaviour.
I kind of felt something wasn't right.
I didn't like it.
I discussed it with one of the other research team and we sat across from, there was like a talent booking manager.
She was pretty old school, had like a Rolodex of contacts and she was just like, girls, girls, you know, it's what happens with the talent.
Boys will be boys.
Another crew member says she raised a separate complaint alongside a colleague.
We reported what had happened and what we'd seen them and said that these calls had come in.
We didn't hear anything more about it.
I don't know whether that complaint went any higher than our production management team.
It was definitely met with, OK, well, that's not OK.
I don't know if anybody spoke to Russell.
The behavior didn't stop.
So I'm not sure what more we need in order for it to be clear that there were not only multiple institutional failings that allowed Brand's predatory behaviour, but there was an acceptance of it to the point of near endorsement.
Multiple complaints from multiple staff members ignored, all while senior production members were actively benefiting from the arrangement.
It's a lot.
It was the old school, boys will be boys lady that got me.
I mean, I was expecting that.
It's what happens with the talent.
I was expecting the attitude, but not someone to say it.
And you get the, oh, this is what happens with the talent.
Okay.
Okay.
And I gotta say, I have a special extra furnace of hate in my heart for women that aid and abet.
I really do.
Well, that's exactly what was happening here with that female agent.
You know, so they're saying, oh, this is what happens with the talent.
And also, it's worth noting that there is part of it in the documentary, but I haven't bothered to include the clips because we covered it in our primer quite extensively.
Saxgate thing, the, you know, calling up Andrew Sachs and, you know, I fucked your grand, he fucked your granddaughter, all that.
This changes the context completely.
Yes, that and the controller for BBC Radio 2 at the time was a woman as well who was well aware of the shit the brand was getting up to.
That's well covered in the documentary as well.
Completely, 100% aware.
I don't know what the version of like, not all skinfolk are kinfolk.
I don't know what the version of that is for gender.
I don't know what that is.
We need a synonymous kind of like phrase.
That case may have been even worse because there was kind of a there was a prize thing like a weekly prize something or other to do with Russell's show and apparently she would According to him, she would often make sure that the winners were all female because part of the additional prize was that Russell would also go and fuck them in the disabled toilets.
Yeah.
I will recommend everyone go and watch the full thing.
Obviously, I'm not able to include an hour and a half of someone else's material, and this episode would be five hours long if we went down that road, but there is additional context surrounding this guy.
Can we please not?
No.
It's a harrowing watch, it really is.
Yeah, broke into the wine!
Broke into the wine.
This is rough.
This is smart.
I'm still stone cold sober for now, but I can assure you as soon as that last clip is played, I'm finding me a bottle of scotch.
Deservedly so.
Let's go.
Let's listen.
This bummer train is rolling.
We've got a few left.
Unfortunately, next we see a return from Alice, the 16-year-old at the beginning of the documentary, now much older and working in television in 2014.
Alice, who alleges she'd been sexually assaulted by Brand eight years earlier, when she was 16,
now had a career in television and was working for Channel 4.
There was a meeting that I was sat in, it was with a production company and
group of commissioning editors.
There were discussions about a show that was going to happen and who the presenter was going to be.
And it looked like the most likely candidate was going to be Russell.
There were a couple of people in the room that raised concerns about him because it came to light that there'd been previous situations where he'd been inappropriate with staff members.
The solution that was offered was that we would take the female staff off the crew.
And then if there were women there, then they would never be alone with him.
I was in disbelief.
Alice says one commissioning editor in the room strongly opposed what had been suggested.
Imagine being in that room in Alice's position and be like, oh, the person who's being bandied about to take this role is, oh, yes, the person who groomed and fucking sexually assaulted me.
Oh, great.
Mercifully, this show never occurred for whatever reason.
I can think of a few.
Yeah.
The sheer insanity of, oh, we'll get rid of all the female staff to accommodate this one sexual predator as the host of the show- Which sounds crazy, but guess what?
Shit like this happens in some form all the time.
It sounded crazy, and then all of these instances and examples Just were flying into my head of like, oh shit, yeah, no, that was the solution all the time.
Just eliminate women from the situation, which like, okay, it's bad on so many levels.
It's bad on so many levels.
It says exactly enough about the ethos within the production companies at this time.
Again, companies, plural, it wasn't just the one.
Yeah, they would bend over backwards to look the other way, which is just, by today's standard, completely fucking insane.
I don't understand How this ever happened, to this degree, is just madness.
In 2020, Alice contacted Russell's literary agent in the hopes of talking to him, Russell, and having some kind of apology was what she was looking for.
The next clip is what happened.
In 2020, Alice contacted Brand's literary agents to tell them about her experience with him when she was 16 years old.
I phoned the officers and I asked to speak to his agent.
Somebody asked what it was regarding and I said, it's regarding Russell Brand being a sex offender.
I was put straight through.
I said, I want you to be aware of what your client does.
But I was told, OK, well, he's away at a wellness retreat at the moment.
I'll contact him and we'll have another phone call.
His lawyer emailed me, was very aggressive, said very clearly that I was after money, implied that it was almost blackmail, what I was doing.
Not for publication.
I act for Mr. Brand.
I am not instructed in relation to any incidents as there were none.
You have made contact on three occasions and I suspect you are trying to obtain money from him.
This would be a most serious... Sorry, I'm going to go back just to make sure I can actually read that properly.
That would be a most serious matter if it were the case.
Please note that the allegations you made over the phone are all vehemently denied and all rights are reserved.
And I pointed out I've never mentioned money, I've never asked for money, you're the only person that's ever mentioned money.
That was how that communication ended.
She also pointed out in the email that the idea that any kind of monetary value would make up for what's been done to her is frankly insulting, which it is.
Somewhat predictable, but earnest questions to any of Brand's representatives about the sexual assault end with legal threats.
For a man who always claims to come from a place of love and compassion and empathy for others, it seems like an odd response.
Because make no mistake, he knew the second that Alice sent that email.
There's no possible way that the literary agent will have immediately forwarded that on to the lawyer, where the lawyer then undertook some paid intimidation without Russell Brand giving the okay for it to happen.
Where money changes hands, it requires a client's consent, right?
And that would have cost Russell Brand money to have the lawyer send that email.
He knew.
He absolutely knew.
He knew that this was happening.
That was Brand instructing the lawyer, tell them to fuck off.
Or the instructions were already in place.
Or that.
Or there is a standing order, which is even worse.
Anyone comes forward saying these kinds of things intimidate them and make them go away.
Well, in the legal system, the way that it works is so insidious for victims because, especially in the post-deregulation atmosphere that we live in in America, is If something bad happens to you, your only recourse is through the legal system.
And the legal system has deemed monetary value to be the way that you are quote-unquote made whole.
And so when a victim is seeking any kind of justice, Even if it's just an apology.
You can insinuate that they are after money.
Oh, they just want to do it for money!
Yeah, because the legal system has decided that's the only option you get, if you get that at all.
Maybe someone is imprisoned if they've done a crime, sure, but that doesn't make the victim whole.
The legal system is set up to like, they're like, well, we have money.
This is what we can do.
And, and the victim doesn't have another choice.
It's such a, like, it is such a tired common trope that I'm shocked I still have to hear it.
That someone who is a victim of a crime is seeking monetary gain in that way.
Like, They don't have a choice.
Would they rather have not been the victim of a crime?
Yeah!
I bet they'd rather have that.
It's a valid complaint if you can prove that this person is lying.
Then, sure.
But until then, shut the fuck up.
And malicious litigation is a crime unto itself.
So that's also, you can pursue that through the legal system.
Yeah, sure.
Go for it.
There's already legal recourse for that.
See how it works out.
Exactly.
In our primary episode, when discussing the rumours surrounding Brand, because at that point there were rumours, I said I'd love to have comedian Daniel Sloss on the show if we ever got big enough, because he seemed actually willing to discuss these things, unlike Daniel Sloss is an established name in comedy and has been performing since 2007.
I'd love to have him on, but thankfully he got a few minutes of this Dispatches episode.
So here's the clip. It's a little bit long, but it didn't seem quite right to split it.
Daniel Sloss is an established name in comedy and has been performing since 2007.
He's heard allegations about Brand's treatment of women on the comedy circuit.
This is scathing.
This is intimidating.
And if I'm scared of this, and there's almost no consequences to me, what do people who have suffered and been subject to his alleged behaviours, how must they feel?
I couldn't not say something.
So from the second I started, he was a big name.
Big, big, big, big household name.
Everyone in the UK knows who he is.
If you were a comedian and you got to gig with him, that would be you gigging with, you know, a celebrity.
There were many stories.
It wasn't just coming from one person or one group of people.
You know, it was different incidents over different years and of varying degrees of severity.
I'm stood in artist bars with agents, promoters, channel commissioners, and I'm hearing these allegations and these rumours about Russell in the same room that these people are in.
And then, later on, he would be in a movie, he would be on a television show, he would be hosting something.
He was still being employed.
I know that there are groups that are set up by female comedians where they warn each other of comedians and agents, people in the industry, who to avoid.
And I know for many, many years that women have been warning each other about Russell.
Journalists for this film have seen messages from one of those whatsappers.
I know there are comedians who have made references in jokes to Russell's alleged crimes and have either been asked or told to not do those jokes anymore.
Hearing that is intimidating.
It's scary.
You don't know where these people are coming from and how high up it goes.
Questions that should have been asked about Russell before he was employed for certain things, I do not believe they were asked.
But you do look at people who are in higher positions of authority in this industry and think to yourself, well there is more you could have done.
Indeed, there was more that they could have done.
More legal threats to protect Brand's reputation, in case the pattern of behavior wasn't obvious enough.
Daniel Sloss, come on this show!
I would love to know more details about any and all of this, plus the stuff about Russell Brand allegedly stealing another comedian's material.
We've got plenty of time for you.
We'll give you hours, quite happily.
I'd love to know what was left on the cutting room floor of this interview.
Yeah, pontificate.
Spitting yarn.
I'd love to hear it.
And I think, I don't know, I have been struck by the person that was in the group in the Driveway that heard the assistant screaming inside and not knowing what to do.
And part of this kind of like very extreme conversation, especially like people that maybe are a little culpable, then Forcing all of their energy onto the scapegoat of the week to maybe absolve themselves of their own, you know, part in this whole problem.
We need to have a discussion that includes everyone who was groomed by a perpetrator to understand what to say.
It is so jarring to see something like that happen in front of you and not have recourse.
Predators thrive on like shock and shock, intimidation, or just being able to explain their behavior away.
And then just people going along with it just to go along to get along.
And we don't have a lot of practice as human beings in intervening in these kinds of situations because it goes wrong all the time.
I think it's really, really important that people understand these behaviors better, understand identifying patterns, because I think they understand it innately that we have all these systems in place to make you doubt yourself and to make you stop and second guess when really, like, what's the worst that could happen?
Really?
Hey, man, like just to your friend.
That's saying something like a little out of pocket like, hey man, what's going on here?
Can we talk about it?
Can we address it even a little bit?
Even if you're just like letting them know that I see what you're doing.
Yeah.
And it's, I'm not comfortable with it.
That can go a long way.
Yeah, yeah, and it absolutely can.
I can tell you every way to do it wrong.
The difficulty, obviously in Bran's case, is that he was, you know, it's almost hard to believe now, but he was too fucking big You know, that same person who wanted to run into the building, you know, said we were just so scared of him, you know, and it's because of the scale of the man's power at that time.
Yeah, but I think a lot of that's perception, too.
And I feel like that's part of breaking down that barrier in someone that feels confident in speaking up.
I think that breaking down the power of that perception in people that maybe aren't experiencing it, but are peripheral, And that, that comes with familiarity.
Like, you know, I think that the, the argument can be made to a degree that, or at least for people that maybe are uncomfortable with the subject matter, or you can write it off as like a true crime story or sensationalism or like, you know, like that kind of journalism.
But like, we need to confront this reality and it hurts and it sucks.
And if I wasn't recording a podcast, I'm probably watching this and crying.
You can watch it after and cry then, now that the spell has been broken and you know what's in it.
Oh man, I had some moments. I had to take a couple of breaths, for sure.
But believe me, you'll watch it and the totality of things that we've had to leave out
will hit you because holy shit.
I expect.
But you know what, I hope we're saving that stuff from people that don't want to hear it.
Yeah, no, this is very much the essentials.
You know, the surrounding context is horrible, but not necessary.
I don't know, if any of it comes up in the future, we'll deal with it as it comes.
Just like we are with the holes in the information that we had with the primer.
Exactly.
You know, we're not perfect, but we do what we can.
So I have got one final clip to play from Dispatches, and it's how they present Russell Brand's present day existence.
Again, they are right up to the present day because, you know, they had time to edit in his response video, which was released the day before, right?
Oh, wow.
Yeah, yeah.
So they were right up to the fucking wire with this.
They notified him of this documentary and asked for a response eight days before it was released.
And that was the response he gave?
That was the response he gave, yeah.
He never responded to them directly at all.
Nonetheless, in spite of it coming up to the present day, this is the way that he gets presented.
Over recent years, Russell Brand has stepped away from mainstream television and gathered over 28 million followers across his social media platforms.
One breath per chance.
Online, Brand discusses conspiracy theories and often takes aim at the mainstream media.
The media, our friends, our allies, telling us the truth and definitely not amping up some stories and ignoring others in order to shape our reality to benefit them and their corporate partners.
He also gives advice on relationships and addiction and makes millions in the process.
12-step recovery, not just for nutjobs and wackos, although nutjobs and wackos are, of course, welcome.
If you're having a lot of one-night stands, I think, like, as long as everything's consensual and no one's being hurt, not you or the other person, what does it matter?
Offline, Brand immerses himself in groups which support vulnerable women.
In July of this year, he hosted a wellness festival, with most of the proceeds going to women-only addiction charities.
Yeah, we covered a couple of the interviews that he did at said festival.
Right, that is the presentation of Brand Present Day.
Not a single note of Stay Free with Russell Brand, the show he's been doing since September of 2022.
Where, as we've noted, he spreads conspiracies through spin and often outright lies, while promoting pro-Trump, pro-Putin, anti-left narratives, and has thus far tacitly agreed with stoking xenophobia, racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ plus sentiments.
He will of course insist that he doesn't care about any of this stuff and that he's not right-wing, but in case it isn't obvious, just because someone denies something, like being a rapist for instance, it doesn't mean they aren't one.
I digress, but it's fair to say there's not an accurate picture of what the fuck Russell Brand has been up to for the last year, which in my opinion is the worst pivot point of his career.
This is a good documentary and solid work done by the Times, but on this front they are woefully fucking lacking, and I'm not sure if it's ignorance or incompetence, but my guess would be they didn't realise it was as bad as it is.
Um, to be fair, I don't think we realized how bad it was when we started.
Not by a long shot!
Not by a long shot, but I am pissed that this is something he's been doing for a year now.
Come on!
Also, also, aside, did you notice he was doing the Wim Hof breathing exercises while in water?
While submerged in water?
All the cells in my body screamed about it.
It screamed.
The thing that many, many people have died from, and True Fire say, oh no, we say never to do it in water.
But of course, Russell was taught by Wim Hof himself, who does advocate for doing it in the water, which is what's led to so many deaths.
A little side note, but that fucked me off.
Well, I think what, again, a complaint I do have with mainstream media, and mainstream entertainment in general, is it is not in their best interest to confront how the wellness industry in general Victimizes people.
Victimizes women.
Vulnerable women.
Like they just said in the documentary.
And exploits people who are in a vulnerable place.
If we do that, that's peeling back a whole lot of skin.
You know what I mean?
It's not right.
And it's not good.
But I know the motivation behind the watering down.
And also, we have to remember that pumping out Volumes, like masses of content is how he can hide.
I'm infuriated by this.
It can only be an intentional fucking exclusion for an otherwise very thorough documentary, and I'm partly infuriated by it because a bunch of people are going to watch this, or have watched this, and won't understand why the fuck his audience is saying, oh, he's gotten too close to the truth.
They're doing it because it's the mainstream media and he's anti-media, right?
It's not going to make any sense to any of these people.
It's just incredibly... it's just a poor fucking show.
And I find the idea of Russell Brand as a wellness guru slash expert completely fucking ludicrous and lacking.
And there is zero coverage of how he got his current audience, which we covered in our primer, but, you know, it came down to COVID denialism combined with a pivot to hard-right political talking points, and his audience exploded.
But there's no coverage of that.
There's just a mention of, oh, 28 million or whatever across his social media accounts.
We're also, like, courting our, like, political lunatic fringe.
Yeah, it's in America, but that doesn't mean it's not happening, it doesn't mean it doesn't affect you!
It is a shortfall!
It really pisses me off.
This is what, Channel 4?
Yeah, you're on blast!
Calling you out in this particular instance!
Oh my god, please cover these people thoroughly!
I have emailed journalists from our account who have covered this, who have written about Russell Brown, because I've read all the fucking articles, and barely any of them make any mention of the shit that he is up to now.
So I've written to them, I've said, look, we do a podcast about this.
It is abundantly clear what he is doing.
I'm happy to talk about it to any of you.
And we just started.
We have just scratched the surface.
I will provide you with the clips.
And found volumes of problems that he should be accountable for.
Outrageous.
It's just such a gaping hole.
Um, in, in who this individual is, um, literally the last year of his life.
And, and, you know, there, there, there's that thing going around at the moment, you know, the, the low stakes conspiracy that, oh, he's, he's turned to the right.
So that, uh, so that when, you know, when, when everything.
Eight months ago, he turned to the right so that he could plead.
Yeah.
So you could say, oh, they're, they're all out to get me.
Right.
Right.
And, you know, I mean, there's an interesting perspective to that in that, you know, he's clearly known about some kind of investigation for a while because he said, you know, for at least a year now, you know, for months and months, I've known about You know, people emailing people I know and all of this.
I personally don't think that that's what happened.
I think it was kind of a happenstance.
No, it's a fun tweet.
It's a fun post.
But here's the thing.
He's been preparing for this for a long time because he's known what his dick has been up to.
Yes!
I can't imagine- He knows where and how he's put his dick wherever he has wanted to, so he knows that this has been inevitable!
I can't imagine how much this man has been sweating since 2016, since the Me Too movement properly gained traction.
Can you imagine being in his position?
Or he thought... the thing is though... Or he thought he was untouchable.
Yeah, or he thought that he could just talk his way out of it because I mean how many thousands of times has that worked before?
Definitely possible.
Definitely, definitely, definitely possible.
That was the last clip, in any case, and I'd encourage anyone interested to watch The Dispatch's special, despite that fucking omission, on Russell Brand.
And read the article in The Times as well, because there is some more fleshing out in the article provided.
I believe it is possible to watch it internationally via Channel 4.com, though I could be wrong on that score.
I have yet to check in, because I had to avoid all of this!
Yeah, Lauren, give it a bash and let me know if it works.
I think you have to register an account, but I think it should work.
Also, in case it isn't obvious, our bio-primer, the first part, will be updated as soon as I have a minute to reflect the sexual assaults and rape.
They'll be in chronological order, much like the rest, so it might seem a little jarring to hear, raped this person and then went on to massive success, but I dare say that's a fraction of how the victims must have felt.
There's one last thing.
We have to confront this shit.
We have to actually look, we have to look this kind of stuff in the face.
And I get that it's upsetting and I get that it's tough.
And like, we have to learn how to talk about it.
We need to be able to understand where our boundaries are and be clear about them and support each other in that.
Yeah.
It's just, this is like, it's, It needs dealing with, it needs dealing with.
I think that because this is so common, and is so pervasive, some level of this kind of behavior, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody doing this, some form of this bullshit, that doesn't mean it's not true, and that doesn't mean we can't change it.
You have to try.
You have to try.
That's literally all we're doing.
It feels like this is something that, like, I feel like it's important to do this.
And it's still, like, anything we do is woefully inadequate.
Yeah, no, very much.
It's fucking pushing the rock up the hill every day, isn't it?
I mean, our limitations are palpable, but I hope... Imagine if we had the power of Channel 4, you know?
We'd be doing dispatches on this shit every week.
Well, I mean, you know, they did A really great job.
I think that protecting people's, um, protecting people's, um, identity while still articulating their story in a relatable and understandable way.
That's incredibly important.
And conveying the credibility as well.
You know, that's, that's.
I mean, this changes.
That's, that's crucial.
How literally every minute of this podcast we've already done feels and like how we're going to move forward.
This feels a little unprecedented in this arena.
And maybe that's wrong because people need to be held to task more?
Well, yeah, I mean, it's not the state of how things should be, but yeah, definitely.
Definitely in terms of kind of other figures alongside, you know, who do the same thing as Brand, this is definitely unprecedented.
There's one last thing that I want to do, and that's read excerpts from Brand's own writings about some of the things that he's done.
This is from My Bookiewook, his first book.
I think that was 2007, I think it was released.
Quote, As I escorted Michaela, a lap dancer who had slapped him after sex, through the front door, I felt very strongly that I needed to avenge the slap.
I spat in her face.
Unquote.
Also from my bookie-wook, quote, I was allowed to sleep in her bed, a girl called Penny, top to toe.
I spun gags and yarns till she let me turn around.
I painted verbal pictures and begged until she kissed me.
I lied and danced and evoked the spirit of Pan till reluctantly she removed her bra.
I used tears and emotional blackmail to secure the immolation of her knickers, unquote.
From Bookiewook 2, quote, I'm the most obsequious creature, utterly enslaved by the need for sex.
I do whatever it wants.
It's ludicrous, the level of servitude and mastery over me that it has achieved, unquote.
And another from Bookiewook 2, quote, This girl was a sorry, fair-weather excuse for a prostitute.
Then the phone rings again, and I, and this is the worst act of misogyny I've committed since the spitting debacle, took the phone out of her hand and threw it at the wall.
Unquote.
And a final one from Bookiewook 2.
Quote.
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?
Unquote.
Well, we've no fucking need to imagine anymore, do we?
He was telling us the whole time.
He's like a fucking serial killer that leaves clues and returns to the scene of the crime.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
A final note before we get into a more general chat about the future of Russell.
If you're in the UK, you can call Rape Crisis in the case of any sexual assault or rape and they will help.
The number is 0808-500-2222, and they're open 24-7, literally all year.
If you're in the US, call RAINN on 800-656-HOPE, that's 4673.
They're also open 24-7, 365 days a year.
Don't suffer in silence, please.
Fuck knows enough of us have done that.
If you're in the US, call RAINN on 800-656-HOPE.
That's 4673.
They're also open 24/7, 365 days a year.
Don't suffer in silence, please.
Fuck knows enough of us have done that.
Well, and the websites are usually, especially safe if you were in a situation where,
I know RAINN is, there's almost like a decoy website where they will, it's easy to contact them
even if you're maybe being monitored a lot.
Yeah, yeah, if you're in a dangerous kind of situation.
Yeah, they can, you know, there's like kind of like a kill switch where you can get rid of the That it looks like a very vague website and the website, you can get rid of it easily if someone's like over your shoulder or whatever.
That's great.
They've broken down a lot of the barriers for people to contact them and I think that's really powerful and important.
No, that's awesome.
And even if you don't need it, familiarize yourself with the resources.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You absolutely never know.
For sure.
For you or for someone that you know and love.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
So, in terms of consequences for Brands, there's currently an investigation happening at the BBC, there's an investigation happening at Channel 4.
Because, you know, despite this being made by a portion of Channel 4, they were having to essentially go against the grain within their own channel.
Which, fair play to them.
And the police are making inquiries at the moment, certainly in the UK.
However, yeah, basically they're trying to appeal to the victims to kind of come forward and do things formally through the police.
Whether they will or not, I don't know.
I would be very curious to know whether the materials from the case, from the rape case in Los Angeles, whether those are still frozen.
Whether there is DNA that's available.
Oh, so they didn't address that?
They mentioned that they were frozen, but didn't mention anything further?
Well, it wasn't mentioned in the documentary, but it was mentioned in the Times article.
But yeah, I would be very interested.
But obviously, you know, it's a hell of an ask for these women to come forward about this stuff.
Anonymity disappears the moment they do that.
So I don't know, we'll see.
There's also the very obvious question of will more people come forward?
Because I don't think it was just these, you know, four, five, whatever women.
This is usually domino number one, especially if it was this prolific Yes.
Doesn't seem like these are isolated cases whatsoever.
Yeah.
What's the statute of limitations, are you aware?
In the UK?
For any kind of legal ramifications?
As far as I'm aware, the concept of the thing doesn't so much exist here, really.
Really?
Kinda, yeah.
If you committed a crime... No, no, no, exactly.
As far as I'm aware, and any legal listeners, correct me on this if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware, if you committed a crime 50 years ago, and you get caught for it now, you go to fucking prison.
And that's the way that goes.
Well, depending on the state and the jurisdiction, it can be rape or sexual assault in some instances, and this may have been a while ago, but statute of limitations is like five years.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Absolutely crazy.
Absolutely crazy.
But actually, a lot of the lawsuits that were Filed like class action, you know, like the big lawsuits against the Catholic Church got a lot of those statutes of limitations either expanded or eliminated entirely, depending on the severity of the situation.
I'm not sure.
In California, there might be a better chance.
It's hard to say, though, because every state is like totally different.
Yeah, I don't know.
And there is also the possibility, you know, high profile case, and if there is very clear DNA evidence, then maybe, you never know.
You never know.
It would, it would.
Hey, fingers crossed everyone, I guess.
But yeah, so in terms of legal future, unclear at present.
He did, the day this came out, he was gonna, so he's on a stand-up tour at the moment.
He was going to cancel that first night, ended up showing up anyway, and did the night anyway.
And when he showed up, there were people with signs saying, we love you, Russell.
Stay free.
We believe in you.
It's shocking to me that in 2023 people are still going to throw down for this shit.
It really, honestly, like.
In this specific case, the sheer number of them is alarming to the point where the mainstream media are noticing and people are commenting on it and saying, oh, this is unusual.
This is worrying.
This is a worrying trend that we are seeing because so many people are saying that this was all a concerted effort, that this is all made up.
And I don't understand how you can look at the totality of evidence, because a lot of them claim to have, and say that this is bullshit.
We didn't even have the totality of evidence available to us, or you didn't have it available to you.
I didn't research it.
I just didn't show up.
You didn't have it, what, not even a month ago?
Like when we did the primer?
A few weeks, yeah, yeah.
I feel like there is gonna be like this just came out so I think to some degree little people it's gonna trickle out and a couple people will be like oh this is too rich for my blood like I doubt Rainn Wilson will sit on a couch with him again after this.
Oh yeah, for sure.
That's an interesting point.
So, obviously, I've said before, I don't think his audience is going anywhere.
I agree with that, absolutely.
Yeah, no, because they're just too far down the fucking rabbit hole at this point.
They think it's all a conspiracy against Russell because he's gotten too close to some kind of truth.
Well, but there's also degrees.
That's what's tough.
And the reality of this kind of situation, when pressure is put on this type of personality, you're going to have that split of people that are going to dive further in and get more committed.
And then people are going to be like, I think maybe this isn't great.
You know, that are in the periphery.
So it's going to be six, one, half dozen.
And that's like, that sucks.
But that's just another reality that instead of just hoping that doesn't happen, we've got to deal with the reality of it and face it.
I do think there's an interesting correlation with the fact that so much of his audience are really, really into Trump.
And there's a parallel there.
Rape.
Rape.
They've got definitely one thing in common.
Rape, sexual assault, and the more they hear, the worse it gets, the further in they go.
And yeah, it's really disconcerting.
But the thing...
The thing that will change with his show is, yeah, probably kind of bigger kind of traditional celebrities like Rainn Wilson, etc.
The people that he's worked with in the past, I imagine, won't go on his show if they know what's fucking good for them.
But people like Tucker Carlson will absolutely still go on.
Already has pledged his fealty, publicly.
Oh yes!
Yeah, 100%.
I predict an Andrew Tate interview coming any time, to be honest.
Oh man!
I really do think that now this has come to the fore, Elon Musk is on board, all of the worst kind of people that you can really think of, they're all still going to be there.
Jordan Peterson has been pretty supportive as well.
You know, I scrolled through his ex feed, you know, for a good chunk of time, but good God, that man, he just tweets so much.
It was impossible.
It's absurd.
He can't possibly do a real job.
Like, he can't be doing anything.
Elon Musk, same thing!
Pretend Twitter poetry.
This has to be what they do all day.
These luxurious little princesses just pontificating.
Sounds lovely, to be honest.
I don't understand why you wouldn't just sit there in your underwear playing Xbox.
Yeah, in terms of Russell's show, there's definitely going to be, yeah, fewer of the celebrity, but still definitely the kind of right-wing, alt-right kind of big personalities who have millions and millions of followers.
You know, so in terms of power that he's able to wield, it'll probably be less mainstream, right?
There will be more of a hesitance.
It's going to polarize.
We have to expect that.
there will be more of a hesitance to just kind of accept what Russell Brand is saying
because he's been outed as a rapist.
And that will make most people kind of have a question mark in the back of their minds.
But obviously, because none of the shit that happens on Stay Free with Russell Brand has
been covered in any of this coverage, really, they're still not going to be aware of what
he's doing there.
But hopefully, just by kind of proximity, they won't engage in that because they know
that he's a piece of shit, never mind the things that come out of his mouth.
We can look at models of what has come before, and obviously Alex Jones didn't have this type of Expose, but Alex was exposed in, you know, several, you know, lawsuits.
Yes.
Oh, yes.
Right.
And so there is a double down, but then there's a reaction and it is frustrating to not see more holistic coverage.
In the mainstream and like, you know, we can do this.
But I think that even like listeners, you have a lot of power in your own voice to don't if you if you feel up to it, and if you feel it's okay, if you're comfortable with it.
You can reach out, too.
You can tell these people that this is a problem, because if they hear it enough, they're going to have to deal with it.
Yeah, for sure.
This is a fun, entertaining romp as a podcast.
We try to make it fun, and meeting everybody is cool, and talking to people is cool, and that's all great.
Aside from this week, we are mostly listed as a comedy podcast.
We try and keep it funny.
Yeah, this was Mondo Depresso.
Yeah, this was something else.
Yeah, and you know what?
I can't unsee it.
I'm never going to be able to forget this, which is going to change my DNA moving forward completely, but we're going to try to do our best and people...
Y'all don't know how powerful your voices are and how important it is to like just to even in your whatever way you can speak in truth to power like there is something valuable there.
Don't diminish your own ability like if we because they can cover it.
Yeah, no, if you can show up in numbers to these media organisations and say, hey, this isn't being covered, it needs to be covered because this shit is dangerous and this is why all of his audience are fucking nuts, then maybe, maybe, if enough people say it, Someone in the media will go, oh yeah, maybe we should talk about that a little bit, because that's not great, is it?
But fucking here we are.
The entertainment level of it, the podcast of it all.
I think that we can get a little lost in the sauce, because we're trying to get seen.
At the end of the day, we have a mission.
That there is a problem we are trying to bring attention to, and that's the fucking point.
At the end of the day, no matter what, we're trying to do something.
We're trying to thread a needle that needs to be addressed, that obviously isn't getting addressed adequately, as evidenced by the end of that documentary.
No, I was furious at that.
The other thing I wanted to discuss was, we mentioned it briefly, the laws around libel and that kind of thing in this country.
Because, you know, everywhere you look it will be these allegations have been made, you know, the alleged rapist Russell Brand and all of that.
And over here, basically, the burden of proof is different in that if you say something about someone in your publication, you best be able to back it up in court.
And if you can't, then you're in trouble.
This worked against Johnny Depp quite recently, when the Sun newspaper accused him of being a wife beater.
And there were, I think, something like 13 cases or something like that.
13 instances of specific things that he took them to court over.
And I think they managed to prove like nine or ten of them, to the point where legally in this country, you can say Johnny Depp is a wife beater.
And there's a legal standard for that now, because The Sun went, no, no, we can prove this.
Fuck you.
We'll go to court.
We'll throw down.
Accordingly, you know, everywhere else is saying alleged rapist, alleged blah, blah, blah, alleged sexual assaulter.
I don't really have much of a problem saying Russell Brand is a fucking rapist.
He's a fucking rapist and a sexual assaulter.
And Russell, if you want to take me to court.
Yeah, if you want to take me to court.
Fucking bring it on.
I will happily go into a courtroom and demonstrate that you're a fucking rapist, you piece of shit.
I mean, let me let me do it, please.
Put it on a fucking public record.
Legally, property wise.
Bring it the fuck on.
Bring it the fuck on.
I dare you.
I will go to the mat with these fucking people every day.
And Russell, I'm going to keep calling you a rapist every single fucking day because you are one.
I'm not mad at the strategy.
I'm signing off on it.
Scum.
Absolute fucking scum.
In the conversation that I had with that person who was defending Russell Brand, who showed up in my Facebook thing, they said, oh, you just hate Russell Brand.
I had to say, you know what?
When I started doing this podcast, that very much wasn't the case.
That wasn't the case at all.
I almost hoped that there was a way back for Russell Brand at that point.
Sam, we talked about it a lot.
We talked about it quite a bit.
The lack of hatred there, it's just, you know, the things that he says that I took issue with, Now, however, I definitely fucking hate this guy.
We need a paper trail.
We talked about it in an email when this whole thing first started.
There's a paper trail that I hope this isn't... I hope that there is a path back.
There is.
Yeah, we've spoken about it on the podcast, we've spoken about it off-brand, we've spoken about it off-mic.
Yeah, whereas now, fucking hate this guy.
Rapist piece of shit.
Yeah, this sucks.
This sucks. I mean and...
Nope, too much.
Too much stuff.
Too many thoughts at once.
I just, I'm, I'm, well, what I will say, listener, listener, watcher, human who's experienced this with us, hope you're doing okay.
I hope it was easier to digest with, you know, among friends, like with people that were talking about it and maybe it's a little more cathartic than just like assaulting, you know, like assaulting your senses with just like bad news, bad news, bad news.
I hope you took care of yourself.
I hope you continue to take care of yourself.
We really appreciate your time and attention.
It's a big, big deal.
Thank you for joining us on this journey.
Yeah, because this cycle needs to stop.
It needs to fucking stop.
It needs to stop being fucking rewarded.
Yep.
With money, fame, and power.
Because that's all that's ever happened, and my concern is that If nothing else kind of comes of this, if more people don't come forward, if there's not a legal case, then that's all that's going to happen with Russell.
He's just going to get bigger.
Because he's done that before, that's what happened with Saksgate.
You know, he fucking quit the BBC and then won, you know, Comedian of the Year, and then got a big fucking movie deal and everything else, like... Yeah, but... Yeah, but...
I know it wouldn't be that same kind of success.
I'm counterpointing to that whole notion, not even just that instance.
Oh, I can hear the criticisms already, but...
I don't care if everyone else lets this go.
On Earth.
We aren't.
We're not.
No chance.
It's going to be like, shitty, but this, because, you know, the nature of the, of the news cycle means that this is not going to be trending on Twitter forever.
This is not going to be front of mind forever, but we are not going to let this die.
Accordingly, I think we have our new sign-off for the show.
We've never had a sign-off before, it's mostly been Bayi, but I think Russell Brand is a rapist is a pretty good sign-off for the show.
I don't know about how you feel about that.
Just bring it up every week.
Poorly, but also rapeless!
Rape none!
You could just not rape, and then no one will call you a rapist.
Isn't that crazy?
Mad.
Right, so if anyone wants to support us and what we do in this podcast and our continued fucking coverage of this absolute piece of garbage, Please go to patreon.com slash onbrand and you can become an Awakening Wanderer, join the Invisible Hand, do all that good stuff and we'd love it very much and be very deeply appreciative.
You can also email us, it's theonbrandpod at gmail.com if you have any Questions?
Thoughts?
Ideas?
Complaints?
Our socials, we're at the on-brand pod for most things.
I do just want to make a quick mention in terms of, you know, complaints and that kind of thing.
If anyone's watching this on YouTube or anywhere like that, if you see the comments section getting a little bit wild, because some of our videos do that, Call them out, please.
We are only two people, we only have so much time in the world, but if you see some people talking some shit, shout them down.
They deserve to be fucking shouted down.
We had to do that recently on our Obama Drama Part 2 video for some reason.
That got fed to the right-wing sphere and a bunch of shitheads came out of the woodwork to throw shade at us.
Yeah, and there's a couple of, like, persistent targeting creeps that are, like, very specific and persistent and, like, bugging me out.
I don't like it.
It doesn't make me feel good.
It doesn't make me feel super... Okay, considering what we're covering today, yeah, not...
Not a fan.
I'm not thrilled with what people... I mean, you know what?
It may be totally fine, but I'm at least bracing myself for the potential hideousness that could come my way.
It feels harrass-y to Lauren specifically, so we're keeping an eye.
You know, we can't always deal with things how we want to and always have the time and bandwidth No, no, absolutely.
I can't deal with it, nor is it necessarily easy, but the thing is- We're keeping tabs.
Yeah, by covering this, we are knowingly opening ourselves up, potentially, and we're not going to shy away from it.
Fuck no.
Regardless of that.
We are opening ourselves up to I mean, there's pretty effective tools people have at their disposal if they want to make serious problems for us.
If they can, so if you feel so inclined.
Comment, subscribe, rate.
I know of, we've had a little teeny skosh of it, but I know of other podcasts in similar vein that people will leave malicious reviews with an intent to harm.
And with this little fledgling project, I can get kind of ugly and that's like not cool because we're trying our level best.
It's like, well, while we're still in our infancy, that can have a bigger effect as well.
And occasionally it can be detrimental.
And so if you feel like, and here's the thing, and I feel very strongly about this in my personal life.
I don't know if I've, I don't think I've unloaded this tirade, but like folks say that it's free.
To like, comment, subscribe, rate, review, all the online engagement stuff.
I don't think it's free because I think that your time and effort is valuable.
So if you have bandwidth to spare and it doesn't cost you a lot for you personally, To interact and to engage and to leave a review or leave, you know, like something good to cancel out whatever might be floating around.
I appreciate it in a way that like, I respect your time and effort and it's a tangible value.
I value that.
It does really mean a lot.
It really, really, really does.
And that's what's crazy is the investment, like the return on your investment of like this Because we are a smaller project in its infancy, just like we can be kind of vulnerable, conversely, a little bit of investment gets a pretty big return if you want to see more of this content and if you want to help us keep at this.
You get a lot of bang for your buck right now.
So I would feel, if I were a listener, I would feel encouraged by that.
I hope you do too.
And I hope you feel...
Heard and seen and supported, because I know a lot of people out there are probably feeling a little triggered or a little sensitive and have similar experiences in some form or fashion.
Even if something like this hasn't happened to you, if you feel like you've been groomed by someone or if you've been betrayed in some way, your feelings are also valid.
And it's okay to be upset and to recognize that kind of behavior for what it is.
You don't deserve that.
I can say with worrying certainty that a good chunk of our audience will have gone through grooming and or sexual assault in some way.
And it pains me to have to say that that's the case, but it is.
And in that regard, like we're all kind of in this together.
Fuck yeah we are.
This sucks.
This fucking sucks on toast.
Personal socials, I'm at alworthofficial, Lauren is at may.by.lauren.b.
Fucking follow us, I guess.
Hopefully future content will suck less.
Not from us, just in terms of the content.
No guarantees!
Yeah, no, and here's the thing, like, he's yet to respond in earnest to all of this stuff.
I think it's gonna be one of two tactics.
Either it'll be radio silence, or he's gonna fucking go granular.
Guns blazing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I kinda hope it's radio silence, to be honest, because I don't want to have to deal with his shit.
We shall see.
And also, you know, if he does start kind of really going guns blazing, then that kind of mobilizes his audience against the victims.
That's the effect that would have, which Then has the knock on effect of making them even less likely to come forward and to go down a legal route with him.
So I understand.
I think that the legal route does interfere with someone's ability to be completely forthright.
And so let's respect everybody, you know, in their own time.
There are definitely instances where if something's going on, if there's a legal case going on, you might not be able to say everything that you want to say about the situation.
And that can take years.
It can take years.
And that's just the way it is.
And it's incredibly tough.
And, you know, like, yeah.
Yeah.
People that we know are having to go through shit like that, and it's fucking rough.
Yeah, it sucks.
And it's hard.
Well, one of the hardest parts, I think, is the loneliness and isolation when you can't come out with it.
Yeah, because you just can't.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, everyone.
Well, this has been terrible, thank you.
Yeah, thank you all for sticking with it.
We love you very much.
We absolutely do.
We should be back on Thursday with regularly scheduled content because I had something in the works already.
All, all things willing.
Yeah, we were like prepared.
We were like, yeah, we were actually prepared for once.
We thought we thought that we were over prepared.
And then this comes out.
Fucking dick.
So yeah, thank you.
You're wonderful.
Very much.
We'll see you next week.
Russell Brown is a rapist.
Bye.
Cuz this is fucking rough, dude.
It's fucking rough.
I told you, you didn't know what was coming.
I didn't know this was a true crime documentary.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, no, I didn't realize how dark this was until I went into it.
There's a cat outside and Kaylee is not a fan.
God bless!
God bless that animal!
I needed that absurd moment a lot.
Kayleigh.
Now is not the time to start a war with the outside cat!
So glad I re-hit the record.
No extra.
Just so that you can see.
Your fucking heckle's up on this cat.
It's just a big puff.
The other cat came right up to the window.
Kaylie.
I'm gonna need to go scare this cat away, one second.
