British comedian-turned-Hollywood-actor-turned-Youtube-guru Russell Brand is facing serious sexual assault accusations. Annie Kelly takes a look at his relationship to his audience as he slides into the conspiratorial and contrarian. This is part two of two and includes an interview with Dr. Rob Topinka, senior lecturer at Birkbeck, the University of London.
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Dr. Rob Topinka: https://twitter.com/robtopinka
Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.
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Welcome, listener, to the 252nd chapter of the QAA Podcast, the Russell Brand Part 2 episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rakitansky, Annie Kelly, Julian Fields, Liv Aker, and Travis View.
On last week's Russell Brand Part 1 episode, we explored the rise of the British comedian-slash-TV-presenter-slash-Hollywood star and his conversion to a YouTube talking head with increasingly conspiratorial and right-wing views.
This week we'll be picking up where we left off and getting into the allegations of rape, sexual assaults, and emotional abuse which were the topic of a joint exposé by UK newspaper The Times in collaboration with Channel 4 Dispatches.
As a reminder, At the end of the last episode, we were in conversation with Dr. Rob Topinka, a senior lecturer at Birkbeck, the University of London, who researched Brand's YouTube channel and was explaining that its audience had shifted from discussing specific conspiracy theories to supporting conspiracy theories in general as a way of understanding the world.
Another change Dr. Topinka mentioned was that Brand's audience, who previously were more likely to reject all mainstream political parties, are now using slogans or topics associated with the American MAGA movement.
And there does seem to be evidence that Brand himself has responded to this, focusing much more closely and narrowly on US politics than he did in the past.
It also feels, to me, undeniable that Brand himself has shifted to the right on several issues, even if the difference can feel subtle at times.
Looking at his content post-January 2022, there are clear changes that feel reflective of this.
The interviews with academics and journalists are mostly gone, and have been replaced with cosy chats with right-wing culture warriors and internet shock jocks like Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson and Candace Owens.
The latter, last time she was interviewed by Brand, even made a point of gloating about his political transformation since she had last debated him four years ago, which he clearly took offence to.
It's so wonderful to be back.
I really just was very excited about doing this podcast because I had such a fun time with you because At the time, we were on such opposite sides of the totem pole, but you were just so kind, such great energy.
And I just said to myself, he's going to drift a little away from being a hammer-and-sickle communist, because he's just too happy.
He's too substantially You're my good luck charm.
It's been really great.
And also, Russell, I will never forget you.
Like, you will always be a part of my love story because I met my husband right after
I left your podcast that night.
So whenever people ask how we met, I'm like, I was three hours late to dinner with my husband
because I was doing Russell Brand's podcast.
So I'll never forget you.
You're my good luck charm.
Some great things could happen for me after this.
I am glad that I have this apotropaic quality in your life, that I bring you love and good fortune, Candice.
There's a word I don't get to say too frequently.
And yet I find that we are already at a point of conflict, because I noticed that you threaded
your first announcement, for that's what it was, with the idea that I've somehow been
seduced into a political and cultural space that you long knew that I would inertly wander
into.
And I tell you now, I always believed in freedom.
I've always been anti-establishment.
I've always been pro the rights of the individuals and the rights of the community.
I've always been opposed to corporate power and to the combination of states and corporations
against the people.
And I've always believed that when it comes to cultural issues, we must be allowed to
form our own opinions and identities.
And I don't think I was ever a hammer and sickle communist.
This is something I've heard Bran say a couple of times now, that he hasn't really changed.
It's just the liberal left has gone so damn crazy that he's forced to reject the existing
political paradigm and exist outside it altogether as just a free-floating freedom warrior.
While I respect everyone's right to identify however they choose, I'd largely disagree with this obviously self-flattering description.
I think if you watch enough of Bran's content, it's clear that Candace Owens was correct.
He's definitely shifted rightward, even if he's still not exactly your typical reactionary ideologue.
In fact, I think his erudite, hippie-ish style is mostly what trips people up when attempting to define Brand's political status these days.
We're so used to this aggressive, inflammatory type of right-wing personality that has thrived on social media, that we don't even recognise one who's clearly well-read, and makes a big deal about being sensitive and empathetic.
Let's compare Brand from the Paxman interview to Brand now.
In the Paxman interview, he brought up his previous drug addiction and explicitly linked it to
coming from a class who had been essentially abandoned by the political system. Even four years ago in
his first conversation with Candace Owens, he brought up a version of this argument. "Let me tell you
this, I feel like, say, my background doesn't sound nearly as challenging as yours."
I come from what you might call from, like, I'm talking prior to celebrity, which would be that I'm imagining the only things you'll know about me.
But, like, prior to that, like, I grew up in an ordinary household, single parent family.
My mum was sick a lot when I was a kid.
I had sort of intermittent access with my dad, you know, relatively regular, but, like, then my parents weren't together.
And then I became a crack and heroin addict when I was sort of in my late teens and and I feel that there are What I want to say like I feel that there were social factors there I think if I was from a different background had access to different resources that I may have received Psychological or spiritual input at different points now that I'm not complaining about my life I've got money and I've got good family and stuff and I'm really really happy and But I think to deny social factors in the cultivation of the individual really plays into the hands of the already powerful.
Like so much of Brand's ideas, it's woolly and unspecific, but it's still a recognisably left-wing argument that describing addiction as a purely personal failing is to ignore the socio-economic factors that go into exacerbating the problem, and lets those responsible for creating those conditions in the first place off the hook.
Here's how he talks about the same issue in 2023, where the problem is now almost entirely connected to low self-esteem and lack of meaning.
It's still not the most mainstream right-wing argument, which is that addicts only have themselves to blame, but it feels closer to the Jordan Peterson terrain of pinning the causes on a more ambient spiritual malaise rather than one with actual material solutions.
This is an area where I have some experience.
I'm in recovery as you obviously perhaps, I don't know, you might know I'm in recovery for alcohol addiction and drug addiction and I've had a bunch of mental health problems.
The reason people drink a lot and take drugs is because they don't feel good inside and they're trying to amend it.
There may be complex genetic and hereditary factors that I'm not experienced enough to understand but broadly speaking if society is bereft of meaning and tells you there's sort of little or
no point to being alive, I think you see a steady rise in these kind of deaths. And when you
have a society where you don't feel invested in your community, like you have any power in your own life,
where you live with a lot of guilt and shame and you're continually told that you're worthless, I
reckon that increases it. Another area where I've noticed a clear rightward progression is in
his response to climate change.
In his Paxman interview, one of the first reasons he gives for his rejection of the democratic capitalist system is because it's destroying the planet.
In his earlier YouTube videos from the same era, he brings up climate change constantly.
But in an interview he did with Tucker Carlson earlier this year, Brand brings up activists from Just Stop Oil in order to make the grand declaration that they're kind of annoying.
One of the techniques or critiques that we use here on our channel when looking at news is, oh, does this allow people to censor more?
Does this allow people to surveil more?
For example, just to use something anecdotal and contemporaneous, that there's a Just Stop Oil movement in this country at the moment.
And whenever you see footage of them blocking roads and road users dragging them out of the road, because it's annoying.
I say this as a person who loves nature, loves the environment, feels that profit shouldn't be put ahead.
I agree.
...of respect and love for the environment.
I can't help but feel that the media has an agenda in continually presenting us with these annoying images of Just Stop Oil getting in the way of ordinary commuters who are just trying to get to work.
I'm beginning to now critique media from that perspective.
Oh, they are using this event in order to elicit these emotions.
That one was odd because he tries to make it about the media and how they're, like, misrepresenting the, you know, climate change movement.
He just sounds to me like a guy who got pilled.
Yeah.
It's like, you know, he sounds like somebody that he's angry and Hollywood's maybe not calling quite as much.
Or at all.
He might have this bad reputation and he's rich and spending lots more time online and he is hanging around, you know, these, you know, more wealthy sort of celebrity politician circles and is He's just like, you know, I think he's just like guy, guy who got pilled.
Yeah.
And it seems like one of the more directly inconsistent things is at the start of this, you know, he's talking about how voting doesn't work and we have to change it otherwise.
But it's like, but also do not protest in a way that inconveniences me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a really good point.
I wonder if at some point he'll go back on the voting thing, maybe to advocate for like the Republican Party in 2024.
Maybe, maybe that's a bit too direct.
Well, yeah, just being like, Oh, these are just like people who like want to, they're just trying to go to work.
Yeah.
Cause they all, we all love our jobs.
I'm like, we all like, we all want to be there like right on time.
I don't know.
To me, this pilling is, it's not so special.
It's, it's actually, you know, I, it, it reminds me, it reminds me of myself, like, Shortly around 2016 when I started to be reading Our Conspiracy and I was, I had tuned to the AM radio station so that I could listen to the debates one night and then when I got into the car the next morning the station was still on and all of a sudden I was presented with an idea that, you know, ideas that I'd never heard before.
And, you know, while still trying to hold on to this idea, but I value these progressive things still.
I'm like, I'm not this, like, I'm not a Republican monster.
I'm not this.
Don't ever think that.
But like, at the same time, you know, hey, these things, you know, it's just, to me, it's all so, it's so standard, except the difference is you have somebody that was, you know, a Hollywood darling for a, you know, a good amount of time.
There was a stretch where, where Russell Brand was kind of the it comedian and, and his, you know, Well, for lack of a better word, brand of comedy, you know, was definitely like in demand and he has a platform and he'll gain a new, you know, he's gained a new platform in a way.
You know, if you're a struggling Hollywood actor, it's not a bad business move to shift to the right either because the right wing is so desperate for like a name, you know?
Any kind of name, it's like, okay, well, if it's somebody who was popular in Hollywood and they're now saying the same things that I'm saying, you know, at the grocery store to the person behind me in line, like, holy shit, people are waking up, look at this, as opposed to, it's like, no, it's, they're still a human being, there's still always a potential for somebody to be pilled or radicalized by the stuff that they read online or the people that they talk to, and if you're kind of an Angry person, you know, not to say that, you know, all people who are right-wing are angry and that's what drives them, but like, I don't know, I mean, to me, this whole evolution or de-evolution is kind of unsurprising.
I don't know if you guys feel the same way.
Yeah, no, I do really agree.
I think almost like what throws people off a bit about Brand is like his style is so unusual, like it's not his kind of style and his sort of like mode of speaking is just like not like your typical right-wing kind of pilled guy.
But I think you are kind of right that there is just an element of like guy gets older, spends more time on the internet and becomes more right-wing, do you know?
Which is just like tale as old as time, essentially.
He just doesn't want to not have attention.
He doesn't want to get old.
He doesn't want to not be the center of the conversation anymore.
And so he's like, well, that shit hit.
What could hit now?
And, you know, he's been seeking it out by A-B testing videos naturally.
Yeah, that's a really interesting thing that you said, actually, because I didn't include it in this, but it's something that Dr. Topinka, the academic I spoke to, you know, he was kind of reassessing Brand's sort of anti-capitalist, anti-austerity thing in the 2010s, and he was just like, that's just because that was like the political consensus at the time.
He wanted to just be against what was the consensus, and now it's COVID, do you know?
Like, so he's consistent in the sense that he's just a contrarian.
Yeah, and also he wants attention for his aesthetic delivery.
And whatever will get him there, that's fine.
If it's jokes about having sex with Harry Potter, awesome.
If it's I Am Against Capitalism, great.
If it's you're pissed off because I'm talking to Tucker Carlson, fantastic.
As long as I can keep talking, people keep paying attention to me, I get attention, I get money, I don't feel like I'm just some old guy who missed the cultural boat.
You know, I really don't think he believes in almost anything except Keep listening to me, keep giving attention to me.
Yeah, and also there's this element, I think, too, is like, you know, I see Brand as kind of like a smart dumb guy or like a dumb smart guy, you know, where he uses big words and he sounds like he really knows what he's talking about.
But at the end of the day, it's like you mentioned before, Annie, he's kind of talking in circles.
But the interesting thing is that in the conspiratorial community,
the energy of that community more closely matches maybe the progressive
of like 10 or 15 years ago, that there is like an energy there that feels to somebody
who might've been a former progressive, like this is where,
this is actually where the, the, the battle I'm fighting has shifted.
Even though it's, it's not that at all.
That is completely pretend from the right side.
And you see this all the time with this belief that they are so oppressed and
they're fighting against oppression and they're trying to silence our voices and
all of this stuff. And you know, the world has become, you know,
the world is increasingly trying to snuff us out.
And that's just not the case.
But like a smart dumb guy like brand who is sort of looking for his place.
I think he recognizes that.
Energy, whether it's from a business standpoint or a belief standpoint.
And I kind of think at this point, it doesn't really matter which it is for him.
Like, like sort of like what Julian was saying.
Yeah, that's such an interesting point.
I hadn't thought about it, about sort of being attracted to like a kind of magpie, really just like, yeah, that kind of that energy, that sort of power.
Didn't he literally use the magpie as a logo as well?
Oh yeah, it is a bird.
I don't know if it's a magpie, but yeah.
Yeah, maybe.
Shiny things to put in my nest.
My hair.
My nest hair.
It also, it would be weirder, right, if all of a sudden Russell Brand posted a video and his hair was all cut off, you know, his hair was nice and tight, it was parted, and he was wearing wearing a button-down shirt with a tie and no, you know, no
jingly, no jinglies or shinies, no wrist cuffs or anything like that.
I think people, that would be like, even weirder, right?
There's something about morphing the ideology while keeping the aesthetic there that I think
like definitely throws people off.
All of this leads me back to the event that sparked this episode off in the first place.
The allegations of emotional abuse, sexual assault and rape against Bran that The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches first jointly reported on last month.
Now that we understand a little more about Bran's politics, is there any truth to the idea that he has been targeted as a result of his vocal dissent over Covid, the Great Reset and Ukraine?
Brand has never addressed the allegations directly, aside from that initial video in which he denied them.
But he has implicitly referenced them in a couple of videos since then, mostly as an aside about how he expects to be deplatformed and censored.
And in fairness to him, this process has begun.
Shortly after the Times piece was published, YouTube announced that while Brand's videos were still available to be viewed, the platform had suspended monetization for all his channels.
On the 20th of September, a letter was sent by the Chair of the UK Cross-Party Culture, Media and Sport Committee to Chris Pawlowski, the CEO of Rumble, strongly suggesting that the platform should demonetise brands' content similarly.
The Culture, Media, and Sports Committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and production companies who previously employed Mr. Brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today.
However, we are also looking at his use of social media, including on Rumble where he issued his preemptive response to the accusations made against him by the Sunday Times and Channel 4's dispatches.
While we recognize that Rumble is not the creator of the content published by Mr. Brand, we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform.
We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr. Brand is able to monetize his content, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him.
If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr. Brand's ability to earn money on the platform.
We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior.
Rumble posted the letter to social media, along with their dissenting response.
For Brand's fanbase, it was all the proof they needed that the entire thing had been a politically motivated witch hunt from the start.
A few days later, Brand released this video, referencing the letter and The Grey Zone reporting on its author, that suggested she had links to, quote, the British Army's PSYOPS division.
I believe it goes beyond even economic interests.
I believe this is about ideology and the ability to oppose ideology.
I believe this is about freedom.
I believe this is about real democracy.
Because for there to be real democracy, there has to be dissent.
There has to be open communication.
There has to be the ability to challenge mainstream media narratives.
You can't have a media that is in lockstep with itself Immersively attacking on subjects like the war, COVID-19 and how to handle it, and a host of other issues.
Here we have the evidence that the mainstream media is working together to support a state agenda.
Do you agree?
Let me know.
Wow, this guy should really f*** himself.
Can I say that?
[Laughter]
Say it loud.
Oh, that is going to be our first live beep.
That is awesome.
That is awesome.
She finally did it.
Oh, folks, I'm not alone in this world.
I've been thinking that this whole episode.
It's really restrained of you to keep it, keep it shtim until now.
Folks, folks, comment below if you think I should K-Y-S.
What about you, listener?
Do you think Russell Brown should beep himself?
Let us know in the comments.
And now we're going to have to beep Annie too.
Great.
Perfect.
Alright, I might as well get beeped, right?
No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah, go ahead.
No, no, no.
I agree, he should beep himself.
Frankly, I was pretty unimpressed with the letter to Rumble.
For one thing, it was clearly a completely futile endeavour.
Anyone with any familiarity with the deplatforming economy will know that Rumble has explicitly set itself up as the free speech alternative to sites like YouTube, so all sending this letter seemed to do was give them a chance to self-promote.
Yeah, that's a crazy PR alley-oop mistake there.
Yeah, that was so dumb.
But my main reason for objecting was that it just seemed like a wildly inconsistent approach from a representative of the UK Parliament.
As far as I know, no similar letter was sent to the platform about Andrew Tate, the Manosphere influencer who boasts 1.64 million followers on Rumble, who has also been accused of rape.
The sudden rush to get Brand in particular demonetised seemed almost guaranteed to invite further conspiracy theories about him being targeted for his political views, which the comedian was only too happy to inflame.
That being said, while I can't make any definitive statements about Brand's behaviour in his private life, there are several reasons why I'm not entirely convinced by his argument that he's been stitched up by powerful forces to silence his dissent.
In order to understand my reasons for why, we need to look into the substance of the allegations a bit more.
As someone who doesn't live in Britain, I can make definitive statements that he raped women.
Yes.
Okay, there we go.
All right, well, Travis, it's your turn.
I mean, if you want to beep, you've never really been beeped if you care to weigh in here.
No, I think everything that needs to be said has been said, so you can move on.
So, as Liv mentioned, and one thing you might have heard me talk about before on this podcast, is how incredibly strict English libel and defamation laws are compared to the rest of the world.
Now, people often imply that this must mean that newspapers never print anything libelous, but that's not exactly true.
Launching a lawsuit for libel in this country is still an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process, and it's one that many ordinary people are entirely locked out of.
For rich and famous celebrities, however, it's often considered worth the money if you can get an incredibly damaging allegation retracted and financially punish the people that published it in the first place.
This was why, during the long and retracted legal proceedings between the actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, Depp's first legal port of call was suing a British tabloid, The Sun, for describing him as a wife-beater.
This practice is called libel tourism and has become so popular among the wealthy and powerful that some countries, like the United States, have had to pass laws stating that foreign defamation judgments are not enforceable in US courts if they don't meet the American criteria for freedom of speech.
All of this is to say that for The Times and Channel 4 to have aired the allegations that they did would have required an extremely high standard of evidence, in case they were asked to defend themselves in court.
They would have been especially keen to this risk, given Brand had successfully sued a newspaper for libel before, and 2014 he was granted substantial damages from The Sun over the false claim that he had cheated on his then-girlfriend.
Oh boy, man, he really shouldn't have fought against that.
Just let that be the story.
That's going to be a lot better story than what's now headlines.
Yeah.
And I should say as well, I obviously, you know, sometimes these things can be kept quiet under a super injunction, stuff like that, but I have not heard that he is suing the Times or Channel 4.
In some cases, it's clear that some of Brown's alleged victims were asked to produce proof to corroborate their stories.
One woman, using the name Nadia, produced a full copy of her records from the rape treatment centre she attended the day after the alleged incident.
The article describes the records.
An officer from the Los Angeles Police Department was alerted by the center, according to the notes, but she chose not to make a police report, saying to the center she, quote, didn't think my words would mean anything up against his.
The notes also state that, quote, she was worried that, if her assailant's name is somehow released, then her name will be dragged through the dirt.
Nadia also has produced text messages that appear to show a conversation with Bran in the hours after she left his house, with her saying, when a girl says no, it means no, and Bran responding saying he was, quote, embarrassed by his behaviour and very sorry.
And will **** himself.
It's going to be the most censored episode of QAA yet.
Yes sir, yes sir.
We'll find some sort of British beep.
Somehow it'll beep Britishly this time.
Another of Brand's accusers, using the name Alice, said that he dated her when she was 16 years old.
She describes the relationship as a controlling one in which Brand sexually assaulted her.
The Times also mentions that they spoke to a family member who was aware of the relationship at the time and was able to support her account.
Although Alice was over the age of consent in the UK, she and a family member who has spoken to the Sunday Times to corroborate her story both describe Brian's behavior as grooming.
Alice says he suggested how she could deceive her parents into allowing her to visit him and claims that he gave her scripts on how to lie to them.
She also alleges that he told her not to trust her friends and that they would all be looking to make money from it if she revealed she was seeing him.
It was isolating, she says.
Russell engaged in the behaviors of a groomer, looking back, but I didn't even know what that was then, or what that looked like, she says.
Alice recalls that Bran told her never to send him sexual images and she believed this was because of her age.
But I think the main reason why I'm not persuaded by Russell Brand's version of events is because for me it's not really clear why the mainstream media, working as the enforcement arm of the state as he says, would cook up some allegations against Brand that are just as incriminating for the mainstream media itself.
The original Times piece contains testimony from not just Brand's victims, but people who worked alongside him when he was a primetime mainstay at Channel 4 and the BBC.
One thing leaps out to you from these stories the colleagues tell, the total institutional awareness and complete apathy as to what Brand was apparently getting up to.
During the early years of Bran's TV career as a Channel 4 presenter, there were repeated incidents which raised questions about his interactions with young women while working for them.
TV researchers and runners who worked on Channel 4 shows during this period alleged that Bran would get staff to approach young female audience members so he could meet them after filming.
Two former crew members, working on Big Brother's E-Forum, a live spin-off debate show presented by Brand that would become Big Brother's Big Mouth, separately claim that this made them feel like they were working as a pimp for Brand.
One says she remembers women calling her in tears, after feeling they had been treated poorly by Brand.
Another claims there were occasions she had to collect Brand from a hotel room, and he appeared in his underwear and suggested having a, quote, quickie, and she could not tell if he was joking or not.
She says Brand's behavior was widely discussed by those working on the TV set.
Another person who worked with Brand on these shows said that Brand's behaviour was reported to production managers.
They remember being told, quote, it's what happens with the talent.
Boys will be boys, it's not a big deal.
According to the article's sources, a few years later, when Brand was working for BBC Radio, several complaints were made to Leslie Douglas, the BBC's controller for Radio 2 and 6 Music at the time.
None of these complaints were made public.
Alice, who later worked at Channel 4, recalled a meeting in late 2013 or early 2014, during which Brand was pitched as a host of a show, but concerns about his behavior were flagged.
The solution that was offered was that "we would take the female staff off the crew. Women that
have worked hard to get into this industry now can't work on particular shows because of fear
that they might be assaulted or harassed." So, putting aside the huge amount of witnesses
brought together for this piece, and the extremely high standard of proof needed for a British
newspaper to run a story of this nature, I just can't figure out a scenario in which the mainstream
media cooks up a story that makes themselves look so culpable.
It's worth remembering for our non-British listeners that there is a very long shadow cast in this country by Jimmy Savile and the culture of institutional indifference that allowed him to carry out his crimes for decades.
It seems extremely unlikely to me that media institutions like Channel 4 would willingly sign themselves up for scrutiny in this regard if there were no truth to the allegations at all.
Interestingly enough, while doing my research for this episode, I actually found an old interview with Russell Brand in which he was asked about Savile in the wake of Operation U-Tree, which exposed Savile's crimes to the public.
Brand was invited on Channel 4 News to talk about the Give It Up initiative that he was involved with, which was a charity fund designed to help people struggling with drug addiction access recovery services.
Yeah, the whole Give It Up initiative.
Not a great name for Brand's initiative in retrospect.
Oh man, I didn't even think of that.
It's another kind of thing I would have noticed at the time, but with hindsight, I found Brand and the interviewer Jon Snow's exchange about Savile kind of telling.
When we talk about life in the public eye, what do you make of Savile and everything that's unfolded from that?
Again, I think it speaks to the institutionalised attitude that we addressed a moment ago, that it must have been normalised.
But I don't think that it should be another... But is it still with us?
Well, yeah, I think people are paedophiles, aren't they?
Yeah, people in public life, people... Presumably.
But presumably the culture of prevention is better than it was.
I suppose so, mate.
I mean, just generally speaking, there's more awareness, there's less of a sort of tacit acceptance of prejudice and misogyny, and hopefully that reaches as far as pedophilia.
But again, I don't know how one addresses such an enormous, toxic subject.
But luckily we don't need to just rely on winks and nods when it comes to people speaking out about Brand's alleged behaviour before he launched his one-man digital battle against the Deep State.
In an interview with The Mirror in 2006, the Australian pop star Dani Minow described Brand as quote a vile predator after appearing on his MTV chat show.
She said, I certainly don't think he has cured his sex addiction, that's for sure.
He wouldn't take no for an answer.
In 2014, Brand's ex-girlfriend Jordan Martin self-published a book titled Not!
Entanglement with a Celebrity, in which Brand is renamed as Randall Grand and Martin becomes Dina.
It details sexual assault by Brand's alias as well as physical and emotional abuse.
At one point the book describes Brand as someone who, quote, "...pushes boundaries, controlling other people to fulfill personal perversions for the sake of dominance."
Martin declined to be interviewed by the Times for their investigation, but confirmed that she stands by her account in the book, and said it is an accurate depiction of their relationship.
For these historic accounts to have been part of the darker agenda at play that Brand alluded to in his Denial video, The establishment is really coming after him for his Harry Potter sex jokes?
sight on behalf of the powers that be. If the World Economic Forum's agents in the
field began seeding dark rumours as far back as 2006, long before Brand took an interest
in conspiracies, or indeed politics of any kind, then surely even Brand's most die-hard
fans have to admit it shows an impressive level of forward planning. Maybe they deserve
to rule over us all.
The establishment is really coming after him for his Harry Potter sex jokes?
[laughter]
Yeah.
One thing that this story does seem to have done is finally end Brand's half-in, half-out
status in the mainstream for good.
With his YouTube channel demonetised, Bran has been pushing his followers to subscribe to him on Rumble, as well as Locals, a kind of subscription-based platform popular with wellness and right-wing influencers.
I asked Rob Topinka, the academic who researched Bran's YouTube channel, if the cancellation from what was undoubtedly his highest-earning social media platform would have some kind of freeing effect on the creator.
Without the restrictions of the YouTube monetization guidelines hanging over his head, would he be free to embrace his fully-pilled tendencies, no longer having to affect the pose of just asking questions?
I haven't seen a shift in his content since he's released, I think, three videos.
Well, he's three of his typical kind of new interview and news videos since the allegations came out.
And they're not really any different.
I mean, he's changed the lighting a little bit, which I think is interesting.
It's a little softer and he has a his curtain is half pulled behind him.
I don't know if that's because he's worried someone is going to be peeking in his window or if it's some kind of I don't know if there's any symbolism for that, but it is slightly interesting that he's kind of shifted the angle a little bit, pulled the curtain shut and softened the lighting since.
He's been accused of various heinous crimes.
But yeah, his content hasn't really shifted.
I think the right-wing drift will continue, but I don't think he's going to shift from his just asking questions tactic because it's just so fundamental to what he does.
He's never been somewhat, you know, he's certainly not a policy wonk.
He's not someone who gets into the details.
He flies at this level of abstraction that's mostly about discovery and love
and community and freedom.
And he likes his rhetorical flourish and he likes to do his kind of the Russell Brand thing
where he's just sort of freestyling and doing his kind of,
he's got this great combination of this immense vocabulary, his wit and his working class accent.
So, yeah, I don't I don't think it's going to change his content.
I don't think it's going to.
I mean, if anything, it might speed his his steer into the right.
But I don't know he can go much further anyway.
I mean, he's already chums with Tucker Carlson.
There's not, you know, and I don't think he needs to get into the more obscure extreme figures because he's got enough cachet to continue to attract these sorts of guests and they're going to celebrate him even more now that he's been, you know, cancelled as they claim.
I suppose the thing that maybe could happen is he'll run out of steam because he's not making as much money.
But he's also clearly, as he has said, motivated by attention.
And now he's getting more attention.
Since the allegations came out, he's up 600,000 subscribers on YouTube.
He's up 260,000 followers, as they call them on Rumble.
And his viewing numbers for his videos have been higher over the last week than they were.
Consistently in the past.
I mean, some of his videos would get over a million, but he was often below a million views.
His first kind of full length video after the allegations had two and a half million views, which is huge for him.
The only other video that's that close was his interview with Tucker Carlson.
So the attention is there, even if the money isn't.
But it could be that he doesn't need the money like some other people might.
Yeah, so I guess if I had to bet I don't think he's I think it's sort of stays the same.
And he continues to just ask questions that have right wing answers.
I think maybe like the final thing he could potentially do like the kind of bow on the top of his like career is transformation is to tell people to Pokemon go to the polls for the Republicans.
Like that'd be a very good kind of symbolic end point.
I probably he probably won't do that.
I was scared you were using that as an elaborate setup for the same thing you said earlier.
Watching Bran's most recent videos, I noticed something that I think is worth flagging.
He's kind of managed to turn the whole affair into something of an advertising strategy, where he urges his fans to financially support his content as a way of registering their dissent against the system trying to destroy him.
Biden told the UN that Russia and Russia alone are responsible for the current war.
Meanwhile, the UK have got boots on the ground in Ukraine, which, it was said, would never happen.
So we ask, was Tucker Carlson right when he said there'll be a hot war between the US and Russia within a year?
Hello there you awakening wonders wherever you may be.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for not being governed by fear.
Thank you for remaining discerning and awake and principled.
Thank you for elevating your consciousness above the dirge and deluge of the legacy media that wants you dumb and distracted and to accept facts like the that Russia and Russia alone bears responsibility for the
current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Remember, we need you to follow us now more than
ever. Here's how you can do that. And if it's within your means, support us. It's more
important that you support this movement than ever before. We need you. It's plain we need
you. The government demonetized us. We need you.
This man has destroyed so many AA groups.
Just like a sober Godzilla just marching through, knocking down buildings, grabbing planes out
planes out of the sky.
The poor people who have to tell him it's the end of his share time.
Just have the little alarm go off.
Russell, Russell, Russell.
Increasingly, what seems to be clear is that in the online alternative media sphere, accusations of sexual misconduct are beginning to hold a strange sort of cachet, where creators can actually monetise them if they're smart about it.
I first noticed this with Andrew Tate, who immediately began to use the ongoing prosecution case by Romanian authorities for sex trafficking, rape and organised crime as proof to his loyal fanbase that The Matrix was threatened by his earth-shattering message that getting rich and being misogynistic defines your worth as a man.
Until now, Brand has mostly rejected culture war rhetoric for a more literate, empathetic kind of conspiracy politics.
But I have noticed that since the first Denial video, he's been very keen to emphasise to his audience that any attack on him is an attack on them too, which is the same, albeit more subtle, strategy as Tate, encouraging a parasocial mentality in his fans in order to solidify their loyalty.
This probably seems fair enough if you're a fan of Brands and see the allegations as smears designed to take down a brave dissenting voice, but if you think there's likely to be any truth to them, then it paints a much more disturbing picture.
Looking at the figures who have leapt to Brands' defence, so many of them are right-wing culture warriors like Lawrence Fox, Tommy Robinson, Tucker Carlson, and of course, Andrew Tate.
Interestingly, I've actually noticed a bit more caution from the British conspiracy scene itself, with some fairly big players warning their audiences not to jump to any conclusions about Brand's guilt or innocence.
More than his actual content, I think this phenomenon signals where Brand is actually situated in terms of the online influencer networks he runs in.
The weaponisation of conspiracy as a partisan tool, and the backlash to Me Too becoming a viable financial engine, are both crucial projects for the online right.
Grand, wherever he sees himself in his esoteric voyage of spiritual self-discovery, is now a crucial part of both.
It is interesting how, like, the more, like, a political influencer goes into, like, culture war stuff, the more they gravitate towards, kind of, America, and less about, like, things happening around them.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure, like, Brand is doing all of this Trump and Biden stuff, like, from, I think, like, a small town in Oxfordshire.
Do you know what I mean?
Right.
But it's just, it's what his audience want, you know?
It's like, as, you know, that BBC article said, it's, like, what they demand from him, and they literally just turn off if he tries to do anything else.
Well, you know, it's a little bit like saying, you know, when they someone decides to get really into pro wrestling, they gravitate towards, you know, the WWE.
Well, you know, because that's that's that's the big one.
You know, it's like, it's like, that's that's why they focus on America.
This is where we do it the best.
Yeah, and kind of like, it's just a cultural export, I think, from the US now, cultural stuff.
Yeah, it's interesting that it was already there in his first viral interview that was like totally, you know, based in the UK with a BBC journalist and he's already, you know, to prove his points talking about statistics in the United States, you know.
It speaks to the decline of your empire and speaks to your next Prime Minister, Russell Brand.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the QAA Podcast.
You can go to patreon.com slash QAnon Anonymous and subscribe for five bucks a month to get access to the full feed, which includes an extra episode for every regular one, access to our archive of premium episodes, plus all of our miniseries like Trickle Down, Man Clan, and Spectral Voyager.
We've also got a website, QAnonAnonymous.com.
Listener, until next week, may the deep dish bless you and keep you.
That's right, love.
Should have done it in a Russell Brand voice.
I think I'm going to **** myself!
Get me to the Greek, so I can **** myself!
It's not a conspiracy, it's a fact.
I'm going to f*** myself!
[Laughter]
[Laughter]
Well listen, Tucker, I've been thinking about this for a long time. Could you take out
a .45 Magnum and f*** my a** off?
F*** me!
F*** me! Or I'll do it myself!
It's not a conspiracy, it's a fact.
And now, today's Auto-Tune.
Hello everyone, juxtaposition here.
Today's video will be entitled, Russell Brand, Psychops.
And of course, I'm referring to British Intelligence, Military, Operative, Fake Comedian, Russell Brand, age 48.
And to confirm that, he was born June 4th, 1975 in London, England.
If I've got that straight.
So what I wanted to tell you is that he's fake and he's saying now that YouTube Google is demonetizing his channel at YouTube.
My goodness!
I'm shocked!
You mean there's gambling at the casino?
I thought they built those hotels and big gaming rooms for the Hofbrau buffet.
You mean they actually gamble at a casino?
Oh my goodness!
I just thought they had fun Performers and shows and magic tricks.
Yes, I remember going to the Mirage Hotel and watching Siegfried and Roy make lions and tigers appear and disappear.
I distinctly remember that.
And I was comped on those tickets, so it didn't cost me a dime.
Russell Brand has 6,630,000 subscribers at YouTube.
630,000 subscribers at YouTube. Boy am I impressed. I have 767 shipwrecked
subscribers at YouTube.
Just for the record, I also lost 270 subscribers over at YouTube when I was banned for life about a year ago.
