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Shocking Rape Allegations Against Brand
00:03:58
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| Tonight on Piers Morgan uncensored the shocking claims that have rocked the world of show business. | |
| Movie star turned new media messiah. | |
| His words, Russell Brand is accused of rape and sexual abuse. | |
| Is he facing a trial by media? | |
| Did TV executives turn a blind eye to a sexual predator? | |
| Why are so many, including the world's richest man, Elon Musk, calling it all a conspiracy? | |
| Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored. | |
| Well, good evening, London. | |
| Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored. | |
| The allegations made against Russell Brand are shocking. | |
| And there is no question that the investigative journalism behind them from the Sunday Times and Channel Falls Dispatches program was both meticulous and powerful. | |
| Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse by four women when he was at the height of his fame. | |
| He's also accused of grooming a 16-year-old girl who says she was taken from school to his home in a car paid for by the BBC. | |
| He's grabbing at my underwear, pulling it to the side. | |
| I'm telling him to get off me and he won't get off. | |
| 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, me. | |
| I was like, oh my God, he raped me. | |
| So a BBC chauffeur-driven car picked you up at the age of 16 to take you to Russell Brand's house. | |
| Yes. | |
| He told me that his management had told him, his agent, not to be seen out and about. | |
| His management had advised him not to be seen out and about with a 16-year-old. | |
| Yeah, because they said it wasn't a good look for him and for his career. | |
| Well, these are obviously horrifying claims. | |
| And if they're all true, then Brown will deserve every punishment metered out to him. | |
| But at this stage, they remain claims. | |
| And Russell Brand has vehemently denied them. | |
| Whatever you think of him, he's entitled to due process. | |
| Every but as much as his accusers deserve to be taken seriously. | |
| These are grave criminal accusations which now demand a police investigation to determine if they meet the legal bar for charges, prosecution and a possible trial. | |
| But some of the language we're seeing online, including from many journalists, describing the accusers as victims and survivors, implies that Brand's already been convicted of a crime when he hasn't. | |
| The court of public opinion is not an actual court, but it behaves like one, and that's inherently dangerous, as we saw with the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, who was wrongly accused of sexual assault, had his exemplary public reputation destroyed in the process until he won a legal action against the BBC and cleared his name. | |
| The consequences of the accusations are already apparent. | |
| Bran's book deal has been shelved. | |
| His tour has been postponed. | |
| His management team has dropped him. | |
| Clips like this about him are going viral. | |
| Catherine is welcome. | |
| No, Shinan, no, don't trust me. | |
| Don't get it, Dan. | |
| You did say at the start of the year that you were considering attempting celibacy. | |
| Is that something that you have continued with? | |
| What time do you finish work? | |
| If you're ever so confused, Fify Box, pop yourself down on my knee and see if we can't get you pregnant. | |
| Feefy box. | |
| Dam, bam, bam. | |
| Come on. | |
| Oh, oh, excuse me, baby. | |
| All right, Liz. | |
| We were. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Well, it's been really a one-six week. | |
| See, that is. | |
| All right, sex. | |
| Russell. | |
| How can I do your bra just like this? | |
| Well, by today's stricter moral code after the Me Too movement and Time's Up campaign, it's easy to watch all that and be appalled by Russell Brand's apparent immorality. | |
| This is not a referendum on his moral compass. | |
| By his own regular omission, he was an outrageously promiscuous sex addict who reveled in his incessant womanising. | |
| Brand openly boasted about it. | |
|
The Danger of Assuming Guilt
00:13:41
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| He was saluted for it by many in the media. | |
| It didn't stop BBC Newsnight using him as a political fengali. | |
| It didn't stop The Guardian giving him top billing on stage with Owen Jones and publishing his column for many years. | |
| It didn't stop Ed Milliband seeking his endorsement for Prime Minister. | |
| It didn't stop the New States from making him a guest editor, nor Prospect Magazine naming him the fourth most influential thinker in the world. | |
| Channel 4, the BBC and a slew of media executives will have serious questions to answer. | |
| If it turns out that Russell Brown has indeed been the ruthless predatory criminal that these new allegations suggest. | |
| So will all those righteous publications who made him a demigod? | |
| What we cannot do is preemptively convict a man of heinous crimes like this without any legal due process to establish the cold, hard facts. | |
| Joining me to discuss all this is comedian Samantha Presty, political journalist Ava Santina, and talk-to-view contributor Esther Kraku. | |
| All right. | |
| I've seen both of you two all over social media since this story broke. | |
| So let me start with you, Esther. | |
| You've been pretty strong. | |
| You said there's nothing stunning and brave about choosing to sit down with a journalist instead of going to the police. | |
| And someone who does that is definitely not interested in justice, only public sympathy. | |
| I was quite shocked when I read that. | |
| Oh, yes. | |
| Because the thing is, ultimately, what are the public supposed to do? | |
| We cannot have this man hung, drawn and courted. | |
| We are not a court. | |
| We are not. | |
| The legal process is invested in us. | |
| These claims, which are outrageous and they sound very serious, obviously you should go to the police. | |
| And it's not just about these victims, but it's also protecting other women as well. | |
| I hate this binary where we have that, oh, we're supposed to believe all women, women are strong and empowered. | |
| But on the other hand, when you don't go to the police, you get to have it both ways where you can have someone not convicted in a court, but you can have them convicted. | |
| But what about the argument that only 1% of rape cases lead to convictions? | |
| That's more of a reason to try and improve the system. | |
| Well, it might be more of a reason why a lot of women choose actually a different avenue to get justice. | |
| I mentioned the two campaigns, Me Too and Time's Up. | |
| Of course, it was down to journalists that people like Harvey Weinstein ended up in prison. | |
| They were the ones that investigated them. | |
| This is the difference between a journalist and a lawyer or someone who works in the criminal justice system. | |
| They are looking for facts. | |
| A journalist is looking... | |
| No, no, no. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| Sorry. | |
| There have been many journalists who have failed at their job because they're looking for a story. | |
| They're looking for a scoop. | |
| At the end of the day, I have far more trust in the legal system, as slow and clunky as it may be and in legal professionals than I do in a journalist that's looking for their latest. | |
| All right, Ava. | |
| I mean, I read, you know, I think with all these things, the best thing to do is sit down and read every word, and then I watch the whole of dispatches. | |
| And I thought it was extremely thorough journalism, meticulous, obviously very carefully legaled, I felt, as a former newspaper editor myself. | |
| I know how complicated these things can be. | |
| So I thought that from a journalistic point of view, there wasn't much more they could have done to present the cases of four different women, none of whom apparently knew each other, all making very serious allegations. | |
| But my issue with the way it's played out on social media, when people talk regularly on Twitter or whatever about victims and survivors in relation to these women, at the moment they're accusers. | |
| They're not actually at the moment established to be victims and survivors until or if there is some kind of criminal action. | |
| Am I wrong? | |
| Okay, well Park the Russell Brand thing. | |
| Just to give you an example that is not connected to that at all. | |
| I'll ask you about Jimmy Savile. | |
| We've all made up our mind about Jimmy Saville. | |
| He was never convicted in a court. | |
| Should we all change our minds now? | |
| I think the court of public opinion has been quite fair. | |
| Well, he died. | |
| But he was never tried in the courts. | |
| And I'm sorry, but he would have been. | |
| And his organizations admitted to actually covering up his crimes. | |
| I'm sorry, there has been corroborating evidence there. | |
| The issue here is, I'm sorry, you can't make that argument. | |
| The issue here is this is an episode of he said, she said. | |
| If he's denied it and we can't do anything about it, what exactly are we supposed to do? | |
| I think your opinion sucks on this. | |
| It does. | |
| No, sorry. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| No, but I'm sure you would. | |
| Look, I think, you know, Russell Brands is an extremely litigious individual, okay? | |
| Libel law in the UK means that it is far easier to basically say, oh, this newspaper has hurt my feelings and therefore I can sue you than you have to provide a wealth of evidence. | |
| It'll be far more straightforward. | |
| Far more wealth of evidence than actually even the court who's ever revived. | |
| But are you comfortable with the way the court of public opinion has already convicted him in many cases? | |
| Do you know, I think... | |
| I mean, put it another way. | |
| I'm as uncomfortable with that as I am with all the people trying to claim there's some vast conspiracy theory and he's being taken out by mainstream media because of some thing to do with his YouTube channel. | |
| I think that is complete nonsense. | |
| So I have a problem with both extremities here. | |
| But I do think there's a real danger. | |
| We saw it with Cliff Richard. | |
| We saw it with this young man I interviewed a few months ago who was a victim of a total fantasist who ended up doing two months on remand, had rapists daubed all over his home wall, all completely the result of a fantasy. | |
| Now, I'm not saying that that's the case here. | |
| They might all be absolutely telling the truth. | |
| It's certainly very compelling and convincing, I thought the reporting, but they remain allegations. | |
| He's entitled to... | |
| Which is what every single newspaper and broadcaster has reported. | |
| They said they are accusations and allegations. | |
| And no business does any woman have coming out now to say that those women should not be believed. | |
| Instead, we should automatically believe that. | |
| Well, hang on. | |
| Again, I have a problem. | |
| No, no. | |
| Again, I have a big problem with what you just said. | |
| When you say automatically believed, I have a problem with that. | |
| I think all accusers who make allegations this serious, they should be listened to, taken seriously. | |
| And then their claims should be properly investigated by law enforcement, right? | |
| That's the only way to deal with criminal allegations. | |
| The moment you have a presumption that everyone who makes claims like this has to be believed, you end up with problems like, do you remember the fantasist who had all the politicians, right? | |
| For every example that you can give, there will be 100,000 women who have had a sexual assault claim that has been dipped off by the police. | |
| That is also wrong, but that doesn't change my point, which is you can't automatically believe accusers. | |
| You have to investigate them. | |
| But the moment you use that language, you lose me a bit because I'm like, hang on, hang on. | |
| But what if there's a young girl at home? | |
| I think you'll probably start and then there's a little bit of a bunch of people. | |
| No, no, I think that's a good question. | |
| The young girl at home who wants to make an allegation like this, you say you will be respected, you'll be listened to, you will have your full story taken down. | |
| You will have all that, right? | |
| What you won't be is automatically believed. | |
| Because if the moment you do that, you allow what happened with this fantasist, with this poor boy, you know, this 18-year-old boy, life ruined by complete fantasies. | |
| These things will happen if you have a presumption of that. | |
| Now, let me bring in you, Samantha, if I may. | |
| You had a brief sort of, well, not really a romance for Russell, but you had something with him, right? | |
| Yeah, we had a little encounter back in 2006. | |
| I went to his flat. | |
| We had a little bit of a fumble. | |
| We got to crunch point and I'm like, no. | |
| And you're a comedian. | |
| Yeah, and I wasn't back then. | |
| I was a model and a dancer. | |
| And yeah, so he was fine with me. | |
| He was really polite and I felt safe with him. | |
| And when you said you didn't want to go any further, how was he then? | |
| He was fine. | |
| There was no problem at all. | |
| Everything that happened was consensual. | |
| So when I'm reading these stories, it doesn't represent my experience. | |
| Now, I'm not saying that, you know, a rapist, an alleged rapist, would treat the same women, all women the same way. | |
| But that's not my only experience of Russell Brand. | |
| But it's said on the comedy circuit, this was widely known. | |
| I've known Russell Brand, I don't know, 20 years from. | |
| I've interviewed him on my life story show. | |
| I've interviewed him for GQ. | |
| I've interviewed him many, many times, Russell Brand. | |
| I was actually texting with him a few weeks ago about potentially doing an interview, right? | |
| So I've known him a long time. | |
| And I was shocked when I read this because I've heard lots of rumors about lots of people over the years, but actually most of it has turned out to be nonsense. | |
| Here, to read it actually laid out was shocking. | |
| If it is true, it's shocking behavior. | |
| This is why it jars so much with me because I've been in the comedy world since 2014. | |
| And then in 2015, I was very involved in a political campaign that Russell Brand was leading. | |
| And he was helping women keep their social homes. | |
| And you never heard any rumors. | |
| Nobody said to me, oh, be careful around Russell Brand. | |
| I drove a van that had the trues on the side. | |
| It advertised his cafe. | |
| He was doing a lot of good work. | |
| So I got to know him as an activist and a good man. | |
| So, you know, I'm not going to automatically believe anonymous people coming forward, especially having been in the entertainment industry my whole life and knowing how manipulative and narcissistic some people in this world can be. | |
| Some people. | |
| I think there's a real teaching moment here because I don't know Russell Brand. | |
| I've never met him. | |
| But he is admitted to have slept with thousands of women. | |
| And I think that's where the issue is. | |
| Because if you are a man or woman, but I was speaking the case of Russell Brand and you have been intimate with thousands of women, it's not difficult to find a handful of women that have felt they've had a negative, disrespectful. | |
| We're talking about an allegation of rape. | |
| No, but I'm going to go about four women with an allegation of rape. | |
| I'm not sure if it's a rape. | |
| I'm saying they generally promiscuous degenerate. | |
| It's not surprising that at some point allegations of sexuality. | |
| Well, Ava, what about the wider issue here, which is that they're all anonymous, these accusers? | |
| Brand's obviously been named. | |
| His name is currently going through the mincer front page of every paper for the worst possible allegations. | |
| Is it right that his accusers should retain anonymity? | |
| I think we can all say that it's been an absolute sewer over social media for the past couple of days. | |
| And can you imagine that? | |
| But only aimed at him. | |
| But can you imagine the danger that those women would have been put in? | |
| And you've also got to think about the financial difference between these two people. | |
| Russell Brand is the product of Hollywood films, big TV shows. | |
| He's got money behind his family. | |
| What about his pregnant wife? | |
| About his children. | |
| What about the woman that he alleged? | |
| Allegedly. | |
| We don't know. | |
| He is innocent until he's to defend him. | |
| You don't really know what he's doing. | |
| Because that's not going to allegate right. | |
| You don't know. | |
| Well, to be fair, she knows him better than you guys, right? | |
| And he has a right to the assumption of innocence. | |
| At the end of the day, listen, I don't know this man. | |
| I have never, I'm not interested in any of his work or any of that. | |
| But there are wider implications of assuming his guilt. | |
| And we're already seeing what's happening to his career as a result of it. | |
| I know you may not feel sympathy because you automatically assume that these women are right, fine. | |
| But the bigger point is here, we don't have a right to make that judgment. | |
| And by going to the media instead of the police, I'm very skeptical of these women because they chose to remain anonymous. | |
| Well, hang on. | |
| Again, look, let me play devil's advocate again. | |
| I think that it is highly likely they will now go to the police. | |
| Well, I have to see it to believe it. | |
| I mean, let's wait and see. | |
| It's also possible that other women, as I believe the Times have now been saying, other women are coming forward whose stories will also have to be investigated. | |
| So we don't really know. | |
| We're at a very early stage of this. | |
| They dropped this massive bombshell. | |
| But it is interesting to me that all the accusers remain anonymous. | |
| So whatever happens, if their stories end up in some way being disproven by Russell Brand, their names never come out. | |
| Whereas his name is now completely destroyed by this, whatever happens. | |
| I just think that's a, there's no way that you could have put those women's names into the newspapers this weekend. | |
| They would have been heckled to high hell. | |
| It would have been awful for them. | |
| You just can't. | |
| But I remember Rose McGowan, for example, going public about Harvey Weiss. | |
| And look what happened to her. | |
| Well, yes, but I interviewed her, and she was incredibly courageous, and she did get a lot of terrible fallout from it. | |
| But by being, I think, going on the record, it did help to incarcerate him. | |
| He'll never come out of prison. | |
| Almost highly probably because of what she said. | |
| But then I would argue that if these women had gone to the police first, the police would have said these are historical incidents. | |
| Can't actually prove them in a court of law, and they would have biffed them out the door anyway. | |
| So, and then we would be possible. | |
| I mean, that is possible. | |
| And then, if we were sitting here around this panel and we thought it's important to encourage women to speak out, I don't like this sort of you know, innocent wallflower approach we have to women actually reporting to the police because it's not just about them, it's also about protecting other women. | |
| I'm sorry, I've had friends who've been raped, and I said this is bigger than you because this person can go and do this to other women. | |
| It's about having something on the record, right? | |
| One of the victims went to a rape crisis center, but she didn't call 911 to report it. | |
| Meanwhile, she had evidence at the time it happened, allegedly, and she could have gone to the police and it would have been on the record. | |
| Imagine if other women had had that. | |
| Do we not have a slither in compassion, though, that for perhaps if something that serious happens to you, the last thing you want to do is for LA? | |
| Actually, have consequences to have two men around your house. | |
| Investigation, you cannot have it both ways. | |
| You cannot choose to be quiet, and then 10 years later, oh, by the way, I was me three. | |
| I'm just going to hear my story. | |
| I have a slither of compassion, but guess what? | |
| I also have a slither of compassion because alleged victims who were not protected because these women didn't go to the police. | |
| Actions have consequences. | |
| I'm sorry, and we need to tell women that's-I mean, that is that is a valid point, isn't it? | |
| If you don't go to the police, you're endangering the police. | |
| Actually, in a way, you're allowing a rapist, if that's indeed what Russell Brown turns on to have been. | |
| You're allowing that person to continue doing what they're doing. | |
| The police in this country need to clean up their act then, because if you're going to turn up at a police center and they're going to throw your evidence. | |
| Can I just finish the point? | |
| If you're going to throw someone's evidence in a fridge that doesn't work and you're going to have to speak to Billy and Bolton, who doesn't really care, or someone potentially like Wayne Cousins in the Met, there is no incentive for a woman to go to the bottom of the state. | |
| That is not my experience. | |
| I have been raped, and I did go to the police the first time. | |
| And I had to go take the swabs, I had to do all of that stuff. | |
| It wasn't a horrible experience going to the police. | |
| The man was arrested. | |
|
Why Silence Endangers Survivors
00:03:19
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| What happened to that, man? | |
| Well, he said that I consented. | |
| So that was it. | |
| It went to the Crown Prosecution Service and they said, Well, it will be your word against his in court. | |
| It's not that we don't believe you, but we've now got this on record if he does it to anyone else. | |
| So that kind of backs up your point. | |
| It was hard to do that. | |
| Okay. | |
| But I never thought once that, oh, I want to go to the press. | |
| Why would I want to put myself in such an unsafe environment? | |
| Yes, believe women in a therapeutic setting, in a personal setting, but you can't just go into the mass media and expect to be believed. | |
| Well, I mean, I would say again, I'd come back to Harvey Weinstein, somebody else I knew well, and he was taken down by women who went to the media, by journalists from the New York Times and by Ronald Farrow and others who were involved in that. | |
| It was journalists that took down Harvey Weinstein. | |
| So journalism can be a very powerful tool in holding powerful people to account. | |
| We're going to move on. | |
| We're going to extend the story for us to show. | |
| Thank you very much to my panel. | |
| I appreciate it. | |
| And says the next, the Sachsgate scandal got Russell Brown fired from the BBC and began his ascent to global fame and now infamy. | |
| The woman at the heart of that scandal, Andrew Sachs' granddaughter, joins me in the studio next. | |
| Welcome back to Peersburg Census. | |
| Sacksgate was the scandal that made Russell Brand notorious. | |
| Georgina Bailey, the granddaughter of 40 tower star Andrew Sachs, was in a relationship with Brown when she was 20 and he was 30. | |
| Brown was fired after he and his BBC Radio 2 co-host Jonathan Ross left vulgar messages on Andrew Sachs' voicemail, bragging that Brand has slept with his granddaughter. | |
| Look, Andrew Sachs, I've got respect for you and your lineage and progeny. | |
| Never let that be questioned. | |
| Hint. | |
| I want hinting. | |
| Why did that come across as a hint? | |
| Because you know what you're doing. | |
| Now when you do this, granddaughter. | |
| Andrew Sachs, I did not do nothing with Georgina. | |
| Oh no, I've revealed I know her name! | |
| Oh no, it's a disaster! | |
| Well the BBC received more than 40,000 complaints. | |
| Radio 2's controller quit over the scandal and Brown was fired. | |
| I'm joined in my studio now by Andrew Sachs' granddaughter, Georgina Bailey. | |
| Georgina, I can see almost recoiling in horror listening to that again. | |
| Because it was, I remember listening to that and thinking, A, I thought it was disgusting. | |
| And B, I couldn't believe that it had been... edited and put out. | |
| It wasn't lying. | |
| This has been taped and then put out by the BBC. | |
| Exactly. | |
| What was it like for you to be caught in that storm? | |
| Well, it wasn't pleasant. | |
| I was very young at the time. | |
| I was 23 years old when the story broke. | |
| And it was a very unnerving time because not only have my grandparents heard about what I've been up to sexually, which anybody would recoil from. | |
| Oh, yeah. | |
| But then it's all the boys will be boys attitude and like, oh, isn't it funny? | |
| She's only, she's a slut anyway. | |
| So like, who cares? | |
| So that was their only line of defense is to sort of slut shame me, basically. | |
| Obviously, their behavior was appalling and everyone agreed with that. | |
|
Unlikely to Face a Trial
00:14:53
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| How did Russell treat you when you were actually in a relationship? | |
| Well, first of all, I wouldn't consider me and Russell having been in a relationship. | |
| We had like a sort of friends with benefits type situation, which was fine in my early 20s. | |
| And he was always very nice to me. | |
| Like he, it was very clear what the parameters of the relationship were. | |
| And that was mutually agreed upon. | |
| And never did anything untoward happen. | |
| And he later. | |
| Right. | |
| And obviously that came and that was shocking. | |
| But later, a few years later, he did actually help pay for you to go through rehab. | |
| Yes, exactly. | |
| So I was struggling with addiction for about 10, 15 years. | |
| And I was finding it very hard to get to clean and sober. | |
| So one of my mutual friends between me and Russell called him up and said, you know, George, you need some help. | |
| And so he sent me to rehab and I was physically separated from my drug of choice and I got some therapy. | |
| And I think that had a big part to play in my recovery journey. | |
| And he looked me in the eyes and he made his amends to me, which is what we do in recovery. | |
| We have to make amends to people. | |
| What did he say to you? | |
| He just acknowledged that it was a private relationship and it shouldn't have been made public. | |
| And that at the time he had two daughters. | |
| And I think that it really made him grow and change. | |
| And yeah, I felt it was genuine. | |
| I felt that he was sorry. | |
| So we cut forward. | |
| This was 2018. | |
| So we cut forward five years. | |
| Now he's all over the front pages of every paper as an alleged rapist and sexual abuser. | |
| What was your reaction when you first heard about this? | |
| So initially, first of all, I have been a survivor of sexual abuse. | |
| Okay. | |
| And I will always believe victims because why wouldn't you? | |
| Would you always believe accusers? | |
| Accusers. | |
| It depends. | |
| I wasn't in the room, you know? | |
| We weren't in the room. | |
| We don't know what happened there. | |
| But my initial thought was, oh my God, I'm glad I'm not Russell. | |
| Because it's behavior that he was doing when he wasn't well. | |
| So when you're an addict, you can cross-addict. | |
| So if you're not working a program, he explained this to me when he made his amends. | |
| You can be off booze and drugs. | |
| But if you're not working a program, you can be acting out on a sex addiction or a food addiction. | |
| And he wasn't working a program. | |
| And as an addict in recovery, I know that he wasn't well. | |
| So I have to. | |
| But that doesn't justify rape and sexual assault. | |
| It really, it does not. | |
| If indeed that is what he did. | |
| I mean, I've only read what I've read. | |
| I've seen the dispatches program. | |
| They are disturbing allegations, but they are allegations. | |
| Do you recognize the person described in these reports? | |
| No. | |
| I don't, but I'm not saying that they're lies because, you know, it was a long time ago. | |
| And I think they should be believed and get some help because part of the recovery program is you must make amends for these things. | |
| And that's what he did to me. | |
| And hopefully he'll do the same for the others. | |
| But you're presuming he's guilty. | |
| I wouldn't say that. | |
| I would say that I'm taking it with a pinch of salt maybe for want of a better term. | |
| Would it not be better now if this becomes a police investigation to try and determine whether these allegations are in fact legally sound? | |
| Of course, yeah. | |
| Have you spoken to Russell about any of this? | |
| No, I haven't. | |
| Do you want to call him? | |
| Do you feel that way or do you want to keep out of it? | |
| To be honest, you know, all I've got is my own truth. | |
| And yeah, I don't know what I would say to him. | |
| I mean, it's an odd journey you've been with him. | |
| He sort of ruined, well, you had a nice time with him, then he sort of ruined your life for a bit. | |
| Then he saved your life potentially by helping you with the rehab. | |
| It's been quite a journey between the two of you. | |
| What are your feelings towards him today? | |
| Well, I feel like he was a different person during those times. | |
| He was young and stupid, and as was I. | |
| And things would have been done differently now, I think. | |
| Slut shaming was totally fine back then. | |
| And so I was an easy target. | |
| But sorry, what was the question? | |
| Well, just what your thoughts towards him are. | |
| I want him to continue on his path of recovery. | |
| And when he makes a mistake, make an amends. | |
| That's what we do. | |
| At the moment, he's categorically denied these allegations. | |
| I hear that. | |
| Yeah. | |
| But when you read the reports, you think there may be merit to what these girls are saying, these women are saying. | |
| I, from my own personal experience, do not see Russell as a rapist. | |
| However, a lot of the evidence is very compelling. | |
| So one has to keep an open mind. | |
| What are you doing now with your life? | |
| Oh, that's a big question. | |
| So I'm an artist. | |
| I paint mainly. | |
| And I do big commissions for people. | |
| And I also am an actress. | |
| And I had the lead role in a play last year, two years ago. | |
| And also I have a little TV series called Fanny Business, in which I play a 50s housewife who's a bit insane. | |
| And I hope you don't mind me saying, you say you've been clean now for a number of years. | |
| I've been clean and sober for three and a half years. | |
| I'll be turning four on February 16th. | |
| So you're in a good place? | |
| I would say so. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm glad to hear that because I think what you went through in that Saxgate scandal was a bit rubbish. | |
| I thought it was just a terrible way to treat a young woman. | |
| It really was and very unacceptable. | |
| So I'm glad to see you doing well. | |
| Best of luck to you. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Good to see you. | |
| And so next, our newspapers and documentaries, the right place for the serious allegations that Russell Brown faces. | |
| Top lawyer Chris Dorky, KC, says they could make a fair trial impossible. | |
| He'll be here to debate that next. | |
| Russell Brown's denied all allegations against him, released a video on Friday denouncing aggressive media outlets in anticipation of the claims. | |
| 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. | |
| But amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. | |
| 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. | |
| Well, the allegations against Brand are serious and of course potentially criminal. | |
| Is the media though the right place for that debate? | |
| Do you know what I mean now as Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vyant, lawyer Chris Daw KC and associate editor of Amira? | |
| Kevin Maguire, welcome to all of you. | |
| Sarah, you fired off a column very quickly which I completely concurred with, which is whatever you think of Russell Brand, and you were pretty scathing about your character assessment of him, it doesn't change the fact that like everybody in this country in a democratic society, he should be entitled to due process. | |
| Absolutely, 100%. | |
| I mean, because we've seen this happen with lots of people where things are said, their careers are destroyed, and then, you know, turns out five years later, they haven't done any of the stuff that they were accused of, or they've done some of it, but not all of it, and it wasn't quite as bad as it looked. | |
| And I've never liked Russell Brand. | |
| I always thought he was a bit of a scumbag. | |
| You know, I would never have got, I wouldn't have even gotten a lift with him, let alone gone to his house or done anything with him, because it was clear. | |
| You know, he was always, people keep saying that he was hiding in plain sight. | |
| I don't think he was at all. | |
| He was very, obviously not a very nice person. | |
| Yeah, I interviewed him multiple times and he was pretty open about his love of having sex with as many women as possible. | |
| Yeah, and you know, he was. | |
| The question here is, has he strayed into criminality? | |
| Well, that's the thing. | |
| And that is going to be, you know, that is what needs to be established. | |
| He needs to have a fair hearing and not in a sort of feverish media environment with people tweeting and all this kind of stuff. | |
| That is no way to determine a person's guilt or innocence. | |
| Well, my issue with it, Kevin, is that when you have language on social media calling the people who've made the allegations victims and survivors, you are prejudging his criminal guilt. | |
| You're saying that all these allegations are true. | |
| They are victims of a crime. | |
| But we're not at that stage yet. | |
| We're at the stage still of allegation reported in media. | |
| And I do have a problem with that. | |
| I think we've got to be very careful about the language that's used. | |
| Yeah, they're alleged victims. | |
| They are his accusers. | |
| That's what they are. | |
| And I hope it does end up in court so it can all be tested and it gets due process. | |
| Now, whether it does or not, I don't know. | |
| And you mentioned earlier, fewer than 1% of reported rapes end up in a conviction. | |
| And the victims who do get their day in court have to wait more than two years for their justice. | |
| I think the Sunday Times, The Times, Charles Ford, fantastic public interest investigative journalism, that is incredibly forensic. | |
| They will have gone through legal hoop after legal hoop. | |
| You know that? | |
| It's a four-year investigation. | |
| I read it with my old newspaper editor hat on and I thought it was an exemplary investigation. | |
| They have given a voice to women who, for whatever reason, felt they wouldn't get anywhere with the police. | |
| Yeah, now he's everything. | |
| Harvey Weinstein is in prison because women went to journalists, right? | |
| So let's be clear, journalism plays a very powerful role in a lot of these cases. | |
| So I don't agree with all the press bashing. | |
| I think the Sunday Times dispatches did this very professionally and thoroughly. | |
| However, Chris, that doesn't mean to say that the allegations are true. | |
| As a lawyer, as a KC, when you're looking at the way this is all playing out, how concerned are you about Russell Brandt's ability to get a fair trial? | |
| Well, I don't think you could make this up. | |
| We're actually, we're here in a television studio analyzing in public the behavior of somebody through the lens of media reporting by a different media outlet. | |
| For me, the problem here is not about fairness or otherwise of trials, because the reality is, I suspect, based on what I've seen, it's highly improbable that he'll face trial, at least in England. | |
| Well, for a number of reasons. | |
| One, because of the lack of credible evidence in the criminal and forensic sense of the word. | |
| Two, because of the passage of time. | |
| And three, and this is the real crux of this debate, the dangers of all of this prejudicial publicity. | |
| There has been so much publicity, which is so damaging and so negative. | |
| And if this were a live criminal investigation in law, as you know better than I do, all of you know as journalists, you couldn't say any of these things. | |
| It's not as contempt of court, but it's not, is it? | |
| It's not. | |
| It's not. | |
| And that's always been the reason why papers to this point can continue to investigate and publish. | |
| On a slightly different legal point, a lot of people have said to me, in the case of the 16-year-old girl, and he was 30, yes, legally, no crime appears to have been committed in that particular instance, potentially grooming, I guess. | |
| I mean, there may be some laws which could pertain to that aspect. | |
| But is it right, some people are asking, that a 16-year-old girl could give consent in that situation? | |
| Is it time to look at the law of consent and raise it? | |
| The age of consent. | |
| No, no, I don't think. | |
| She can get married at 16. | |
| Yeah, well, you can get married and join the army at 16, but and so for limited purposes. | |
| But does that case raise any issues for you? | |
| Listen, I'm not going to speak about the facts of an individual allegation, because I think that's the exact mistake that too many people are getting into, particularly lawyers who should know better. | |
| Okay, I can't comment on the allegations themselves. | |
| But so far as the idea that a 30-year-old man can have a consensual relationship with a 16-year-old young woman, the law says that. | |
| I don't think it's a subject I know enough about, but I would say that, frankly, the age of consent is possible. | |
| Sorry, you're not a lawyer, so you can come off. | |
| But I'd say it was morally pretty reprehensible. | |
| I mean, I just don't think we're here to judge Russell Brand from a moral standpoint. | |
| In the sense of, well, he may not have the same moral compass as the rest of us, but that's not what he's being judged on. | |
| We're judging him really on whether his morals have led him to commit crimes against these women, which is what they've alleged. | |
| This is true. | |
| But also, but these crimes are very, very... | |
| One of the reasons that so few rape allegations go to court is because they are very difficult to prove, aren't they? | |
| Listen, I think the big story here that we should be talking about, and Kevin alluded to this earlier on, is women cannot get justice when they're raped in this country. | |
| Women cannot get justice if they're sexually assaulted in this country because the system doesn't have the resource to cope with even 5%. | |
| So wouldn't that be their response to you saying this is all playing out in the media? | |
| Isn't that why they've gone to the media? | |
| No, they may have. | |
| I'm not criticising the individual women who went to the media. | |
| That's entirely. | |
| But almost by your own admission, where else can they go? | |
| The legal system is so flawed. | |
| You make a good point, but that's what we should be talking about. | |
| No, we're not really. | |
| We're talking about Russell Britain. | |
| I'm literally talking about it. | |
| No, no, we are talking. | |
| I mean, we, the country, the media as a whole, have become obsessed with Russell Brand. | |
| We're not habitually talking about the flaws in our justice system and the lack of police officers. | |
| I'll pick you up on that because we're talking about Russell Brand. | |
| He's a major celebrity. | |
| He's a Hollywood star. | |
| What's that significant? | |
| Well, then what's the problem? | |
| Well, how about part of celebrity culture? | |
| That's why we're talking about it. | |
| But also, he's a powerful guy who's held down positions at top networks like the BBC, which are publicly. | |
| He's not a Harvey Weinstein, though, is he, in terms of... | |
| We don't know, do we? | |
| Well, no, in terms of power within the industry. | |
| Well, actually, I would say Russell Brand has held a lot of responsibility. | |
| So you must accept there is a difference in the public's attention and interest if there's an allegation mirred, it's an allegation, against somebody who's incredibly prominent, as in somebody who lives in Leeds or Luton you've never heard of. | |
| Of course. | |
| And that person leads us. | |
| And I know that's the first time. | |
| But the common thread I think where we may find agreement here is if you look at the, this year's been Philip Schofield, Hugh Edwards, now Russell Brand, all different stories, but all massive scandals involving very big celebrity figures, news people and so on. | |
| But the common theme is they've all been convicted in the court of public opinion and by jury of social media. | |
|
Celebrity Culture and Media Trials
00:11:01
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|
| And that to me seems to be a problem. | |
| When I ran the Daily Mirror, for example, social media didn't exist. | |
| Hang on, hang on. | |
| Some people have been found not guilty. | |
| There are people who like Russell Brand's views and his conspiracy theories, so they say, oh, he's the victim of another conviction. | |
| I'm going to come to that part of this in a different part of the show because I find that ridiculous. | |
| The idea that people are promoting this theory, a lot of high-profile people are, that somehow, because Russell Brand does this YouTube channel in which he goes down conspiracy theory routes, he's got to be silenced. | |
| I think he's for the birds. | |
| But I mean, the thing about, if you think about other people who have been accused, the only people who have managed to prove their innocence really properly are the ones who've got very, very, very deep pockets and who can afford to go and very, very good lawyers. | |
| And it's very difficult for ordinary people. | |
| And to be honest, this does happen to ordinary people, doesn't it? | |
| It's not just the celebrities. | |
| Almost always. | |
| It does happen. | |
| You know, basically, if you want to ruin someone's life, accuse them of something like this. | |
| And it happens to. | |
| I mean, I watched Russell Brand's video, right? | |
| Like I said, I've known Russell Brand 20 odd years, right? | |
| I was trying to get him for an interview until this blew up. | |
| I watched his video and I saw a guy, I mean, he was absolutely adamant, right? | |
| I've been sent these allegations. | |
| Any suggestion it was non-consensual, I utterly refute. | |
| Now, there is some evidence that the papers have already produced and dispatches text messages and so on, and who knows what else they've got, which I'm told by other lawyers is materially very important. | |
| Because even though there's at times... Contemporaneous evidence, absolutely. | |
| Because it's contemporaneous. | |
| So he will be judged accordingly on that. | |
| But it's very difficult, like Sarah said. | |
| If you're Russell Brand, how do you, this is a tsunami sweeping over you. | |
| Shutting down your life and his wife's pregnant, he's on a tour. | |
| He's got all this. | |
| Suddenly, it's all gone, right? | |
| He's flamed away. | |
| Sorry, Piers, go ahead. | |
| My only question really is: is this right that our society does this in the way that we're doing it? | |
| So people like Philip Schofield, like Hugh Edwards. | |
| It's not right. | |
| All in different cases. | |
| It's not right, Piers, but it's far worse that tens and tens of thousands of women are raped in this country and hardly any media coverage about it and hardly any resource put into supporting it. | |
| But that doesn't mean that's much worse than three celebrities being falsely accused if that's what's happening. | |
| That's a pinprick in terms of sexual offences and sexual violence in this country. | |
| It's an irrelevance. | |
| To be fair, in every one of those cases, all the revelations from the newspapers may well turn out to have been completely accurate, right? | |
| So I'm not in any way trying to impugn the veracity of these revelations. | |
| Philip Schofield and Hugh Edgewood were not accused of illegality. | |
| So I think it's a different case of a completely different level with Brand. | |
| But do you want to live in a country where people who want to make accusations, charges, allegations because they feel they've suffered some terrible crime can't speak out? | |
| And they're gagged and we're not allowed to discuss it. | |
| No, I mean, that's a difference. | |
| I victim speaking out and the media coordinating a campaign designed to get us talking. | |
| No, but this one's not. | |
| Well, that's all happening. | |
| Or, not to get people talking, but to hold somebody powerful to account. | |
| Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is, this is basically, this is what, this is the result of Me Too. | |
| MeToo's done a lot of really good things. | |
| It stopped powerful, nasty men from taking advantage of people who are in their throbbing. | |
| Has it really? | |
| I think it has. | |
| In the real world. | |
| Yeah, I think it has. | |
| I think, well, certainly in my industry, in newspapers, you're much less likely to have any trouble. | |
| Maybe less likely, but it's not stopped. | |
| No, but it is. | |
| I think it's dramatically changed. | |
| It is behavior. | |
| I really change it. | |
| I think it really, really has changed behavior. | |
| I think the issue here is that these allegations relate to 10 years ago. | |
| Okay. | |
| I'm not, you know, it's very difficult with the passage of time to prove any of this kind of stuff. | |
| I think that if women really, I think they should come forward and they should come forward to the police and they should do it as quickly as they can. | |
| And I know it's difficult because I know it's a very emotional thing and I know all sorts of things. | |
| But the most important thing is to come forward at every stage. | |
| And doing what this, what's happening now probably won't get them any justice. | |
| Okay, I've got to leave it there. | |
| Thank you very much, my pack. | |
| I appreciate it. | |
| Lots, it's complicated this stuff. | |
| These are big issues. | |
| I think you raise a very good point, Chris. | |
| I do think the bigger story is exactly what you just identified, which is most people, most women, the vast majority that make allegations, they don't have any justice. | |
| Even when the evidence is overwhelming. | |
| Thank you, all three of you. | |
| I appreciate it. | |
| On sense of next, millions of Russell Brand supporters decry the case against him as a conspiracy. | |
| The world's richest man, Elon Musk, is among them. | |
| I'll debate with one of the influencers defending him next. | |
| Welcome back to Piers Walking on Censor. | |
| In recent years, Russell Brand's reinvented himself as an anti-establishment commentator online. | |
| He has 6.6 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, 11.2 million followers on Twitter, 6 million fans on Facebook. | |
| And they're all very loyal to him. | |
| Millions of fans have been crying conspiracy since this scandal broke, led by influential figures like Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, and Andrew Tate. | |
| Why do so many believe that he's a victim of a big conspiracy? | |
| We'll discuss this. | |
| I'm joined by the controversial influencer Pearl Davis and from New York, the, well, equally controversial influencer Louise Mex. | |
| Let's call you both the same title, shall we? | |
| All right, let me start with you, Pearl. | |
| I've been watching this. | |
| It's very interesting how this debate has come down now with a lot of people on the conservative right in the main, but basically saying they believe he's been deliberately targeted and taken down to silence him because he's been promoting what they see as conspiracy theories. | |
| I mean, it certainly seems like that. | |
| I mean, I think you just start to see the same thing over and over again, where prominent figures like the Tate brothers, right, come out and then all of a sudden they have all these allegations from 10 years ago and there's no evidence. | |
| They don't go to the police. | |
| And all of the sudden it's believe women with no evidence. | |
| And it becomes like trial by the media, which I just think is wrong. | |
| But is it right to equate his YouTube channel, his exploration of various theories about COVID or whatever? | |
| Is it really realistic that a four-year investigation by two mainstream media companies is in any way connected to that or a desire to silence him? | |
| Why would they care? | |
| It just seems like they always just go after him. | |
| I don't know why. | |
| All right, let me bring in Louise. | |
| I mean, I don't really follow this theory because I don't understand why mainstream media would really care if Russell Brand has millions of people that want to watch his stuff. | |
| I mean, I've watched some of them occasionally. | |
| It's not always right-wing people. | |
| He has left-wing people on as well. | |
| It's quite interesting, some of it. | |
| I was going to get him on my show and maybe do his. | |
| So I don't really understand this theory that somehow it's all a deliberate campaign to silence it. | |
| What did they have a time machine, Pierce? | |
| Like, did they have a time machine to go back in time four years before he had this YouTube channel at all? | |
| And before he started tacking hard to the alt-right, and then somehow they decided that they were going to get him. | |
| No, they didn't. | |
| And I think the key thing here is not to confuse two separate issues. | |
| The first is the issue of putative criminality of a criminal case that, as your previous guests said, will almost certainly never be brought because this is historical stuff. | |
| And saying, which I think you're saying I disagree with you, that the rest of us can't decide that these women are victims. | |
| Now, I don't believe in the Me Too movement. | |
| I have a problem with the idea that accusation is the same as conviction. | |
| That's not true. | |
| I believe these specific women because I heard what they have to say and I find them credible in a way that I don't find other accusers credible. | |
| And I think that's the difference. | |
| It's not the police. | |
| Then go to the police. | |
| Like, why are you going to the media and not the police? | |
| You know, I mean, at the end of the day, the media, like, they run stories, and I just don't think it's fair that we do trial by the media. | |
| Well, except that, as I said earlier, Harvey Weinstein is in prison because women went to journalists. | |
| And then the police. | |
| They should go to the police. | |
| Yeah, but it can be very... | |
| Sometimes women feel. | |
| We just had this. | |
| Why would you? | |
| That doesn't make any sense. | |
| You go to the journalists instead of the police. | |
| But we live in a country here where only 1% of rape allegations lead to conviction. | |
| Well, maybe only 1% were telling the truth. | |
| I don't know. | |
| Does that seem likely? | |
| Could be. | |
| Unlikely. | |
| I don't know. | |
| It says to me the justice system is wrong in the way we investigate these things, Louise. | |
| Look, Pearl is somebody who believes that women shouldn't even have the vote. | |
| Okay, let's just, let's just leave it there. | |
| You heard in your own show today, on your own show today, Piers, one of your earlier guests who was actually defending Russell Brand said that she had been raped and the police treated her very nicely. | |
| But when you pressed her and said, then what happened? | |
| We heard what happens all the time to women that make these accusations. | |
| The director of public prosecution said there were two people in the room. | |
| I can't prove anything. | |
| And they didn't bother to bring it up. | |
| Yeah, because you need evidence. | |
| I'm just assuming they're telling the truth. | |
| I'm just assuming that I don't think it is sensible to automatically believe any accusers about anything. | |
| My natural journalistic head says to me, that's a dangerous road to go down. | |
| We've seen time and again cases in this country where people have been, have turned out to be completely innocent who were the subject of massive publicity over bogus allegations. | |
| Well, and you're telling me that a guy that has women throwing themselves at him 24-7 had to rape somebody? | |
| That doesn't make sense to me. | |
| I don't think you can make the leap that that couldn't happen. | |
| I didn't say it couldn't. | |
| I'd say it's very unlikely. | |
| Like, it's Elon Musk. | |
| Is he going to rob a bank? | |
| Probably not. | |
| I think it's certainly less likely, but he could do it. | |
| Louise, final word to you. | |
| Quick. | |
| He had thousands of women, yeah, but he decided he had to go and pick up a 16-year-old from school. | |
| Look, I don't have to see him convicted in a court of law to believe these accusers because these specific accusers are credible. | |
| Okay. | |
| Stories are credible. | |
| Why are they credible? | |
| We've got to leave it there. | |
| We will come back to this because it's bound to keep going, Ms. Scandal. | |
| Thank you, Pearl. | |
| Thank you, Louise. | |
| That's it from me. | |
| We're here up to. | |
| Keep it uncensored. | |