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Sept. 19, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:15
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YouTube Earnings Stripped Amid Allegations 00:05:14
Tonight on Piers Morgan on Censor, Russell Brand's tour is postponed.
His book deal is shelved.
Now YouTube strips his earnings over claims of sexual abuse and rape.
Should they have the power to cancel before any conviction?
Spotlight on the media as Brands fans cry conspiracy and executives face questions on what they knew and when.
I'll talk to mainstream media beasts, Andrew Neal and Robert Peston.
And Mariella Frostruck, by the way, I might add.
Plus, rugby legend Danny Cipriani knows a thing or two about surviving the media storm when the most private of stories go public.
He joins me live in the studio.
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensor.
Russell Brand is facing shocking accusations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse.
If he's charged and convicted, he'll deserve everything the law throws at him.
No decent person would disagree with that.
But what if he isn't?
What if Russell Brand has committed no crimes?
As we sit here today, he's not been proven guilty of any crimes, but since these allegations were made public, Brand has rapidly begun to lose pretty much everything.
He's been dropped by his management agency.
His book deal has been shelved.
His theatre tour postponed.
Netflix and BBC iPlayer have begun taking down his content.
And today, YouTube ruled that he can't make any money from the videos he posts to his six and a half million followers by banning all advertising.
Now, a reminder, Russell Brand has vehemently denied the allegations against him.
And ironically, he did so in a video posted to YouTube.
Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies, and as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.
Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual.
I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent.
And I'm being transparent about it now as well.
And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play?
Well, there might be or there might not, but YouTube says it's demonetized Brand's page because of its creator responsibility guidelines, saying if a creator's off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community.
But what is the behavior that he's supposedly done that's harmed the community that's been proven beyond any doubt?
As far as we all know at the moment, they are accusations, albeit very serious ones, that were done in extremely well-researched and meticulous investigative journalism by the Sunday Times and by Channel 4's Dispatches Program.
But there's something slightly Orwellian about a business that says it will still host his videos, keeping millions of eyeballs on their platform, but won't share any of the monetary spoils.
We know the big tech companies have got this wrong before.
Thousands were suspended, losing their main source of income for claiming that, for example, face masks don't really work that well against COVID and that the virus probably leaked from a Chinese lab.
Both those things now look like they have some merit to them.
Now, I love YouTube.
Millions of people watch this show on YouTube.
We have one and a half million subscribers to our YouTube channel.
But plainly, it's perilous in a free democratic society for any powerful business to appoint itself judge, jury, and perhaps premature executioner.
And the way this story is playing out online is evidence of a slightly bigger problem, which is tribalism.
Millions of people have raced to Russell Brand's defense without even reading the heinous claims about him.
They all think it's a conspiracy by the mainstream media to crush a man who got too close to the truth.
I think that's rubbish, personally.
Millions more have convicted him based on their opinions, forcing companies to end his career before he's had any due process.
I think they are wrong to race to conviction point two.
Well, join me now to discuss all this is Titans Radio broadcaster and author Mariella Frostrop, ITV's political editor and author of The Crash, a thrilling new novel, Robert Peston, and author of The War on the West, Douglas Murray, over in New York.
Let me start with you, Douglas, because I've not had the take yet from New York.
What's the mood there?
Because Russell Brand's a big name in America, big Hollywood star, of course, big media figure there as well.
How has this gone down in America?
Well, you say he's big in America.
He is famous, but he's not a big talent.
His attempt to break Hollywood some years ago was a flop.
Everyone recognizes that.
And it's been argued that his more recent trajectory into the sort of fever swamps of conspiracy theory are a sort of result of that.
He tried his career in the UK, came to America to try to do it, didn't work.
And then he became this sort of self-appointed guru who most recently could be found on his YouTube channel claiming that the Maui fires were arguably started by BlackRock lasers, although there was no evidence for that, but there wasn't any evidence not for it either.
I mean, this was, for anyone unfamiliar with it, the territory that he had got himself into.
The Sunday Times Investigation Revealed 00:15:36
So there's enormous interest in it, of course, as there is in all of these media stories.
But it's not the case that he's regarded as any kind of talent.
Mariella, I read this report in the Sunday Times.
Then I watched the dispatches thing.
I think you've got to do that to make any measured judgment about where we are with this.
It seemed to me, with my former newspaper editor hat on, incredibly well-researched investigative journalism, obviously gone through many layers of fact-checking and legal work.
But ultimately, in some of the cases, certainly, it will be a case of the word of the person making the allegations against Brands.
And he's vehemently denied any criminality here.
Is it right that he should be unceremoniously cancelled by all these companies before we've really got to a conclusion on this?
Well, my greatest surprise, quite frankly, is that he's been allowed to broadcast for as long as he has, because if you look back at some of the quotes from his delightful memoir, My Booky Work, then you'll find extremely misogynistic, extremely unsavoury, and I would say in many cases, alluding to an issue on his part with what is and isn't consensual.
Well, it's interesting to say that.
So I found an interview I did with him in 2006, which is the same year, I think, that he was going out with this 16-year-old girl and picking her up from school.
And it was a classic brand interview at the time, where I asked, for reasons that I'm not entirely sure, other than it must have been jocular at the time, are you a more successful sexual predator now you don't drink?
I meant it as a joke.
I didn't have any information about him actually being a sexual predator.
He said, yes, but I resent the word predator.
I like to think of myself as a conduit of natural forces.
After all, the most natural thing in the world for people to do is to, he used a euphemism for having sex.
And people want to do it.
He said, so all you have to do is remove all the reasons why women don't actually go through with it, like pride and reputation.
You just have to unpick the conditions stopping women going straight to bed with you.
And then he said this, to your point.
I asked him if he was attracting more women since becoming a celebrity.
He said, actually, all this changes the amount of seduction required has decreased to almost preposterous proportions.
Now I'm famous.
I've always been good at pulling because I'm quite charming.
But if I talked to 10 women in the old days and I'd back myself to pull two or three, now I wouldn't be happy with less than eight or nine.
And whereas I would have devoted a lot of time to the seduction, depending on the quality of the target, now I just get on with it.
Fame has been very helpful in that respect.
Now, these are damning quotes, right?
But that's a damning question as well, if you don't mind saying.
Because if you can say to him as a joke question, you're a more successful sexual actor now that you don't drink, then actually what it reflects is a culture where it's acceptable to make jokes about things that are incredibly serious.
I totally agree.
And that for me is the biggest issue with all of this.
You know, if criminal proceedings go ahead and if he's found guilty, that's a completely separate thing.
And I'm not in any way qualified to talk about that.
But certainly as a woman who's been in the public eye for the last 35 years, you know, the atmosphere and the ability for people to use their power and to promote themselves in a certain way and to discuss and laugh about things that really aren't funny.
I think began in the kind of mid-90s with all those lad magazines.
Yeah, I don't disagree.
And of course, we saw what happened with the thing with Jonathan Ross with Paul, with the young woman, Georgina Bailey, was on my show last night talking about the effect that had on her life.
Robert, I mean, he goes on to say, he boasts endlessly about the number of women he's slept with and so on, but he goes on to say that he treats women as goddesses.
He never wants to be misogynistic or aggressive towards women.
He kind of qualifies it all, as he's often done, leaving you sort of wondering, well, what is the real Russell brand here?
Maybe from these investigations, we are finding out the sinister reality, but maybe we're not.
I mean, I do think if you believe in due process, if you believe in the law doing its job, it is too early to convict him.
So look, we all, I'm sure, contributors to your show, peers, believe in due process.
But on the other hand, you know, there have been more than rumors.
It's been a sort of open secret in parts of the media for years.
This character was seen by women who he'd had relationships with as abusive.
And I mean, you know, my partner, Charlotte Edwards, wrote in The Standard a few years ago about, you know, what an appalling man he was in terms of his relationships with women.
And she was responding, actually, curiously, to a Sunday Times interview with him in which he'd said he'd become a great supporter of Me Too.
And I mean, this was a sort of, I mean, this was like an insult, really, but there wasn't the outrage you would have expected.
So, I mean, many would say, yes, it's great that Channel 4 and the Sunday Times have done an important investigation about how an individual seems to have abused his power as a result of his fame.
But you slightly ask yourself, why weren't they doing this year?
You know, why was he being given respectability over many years?
Why was the investigation, in a sense, so late?
But also more so, I mean, it's interesting, you know, that Charlotte writes this article, but actually, he's written far more damning things that people have written about him.
I mean, if you look at these quotes from my bookie book, by my 20s, I would relish the challenge of chastemaids and the search for the correct combination of words required to decode their moral resistance, the Nobstacle course, I call it.
You know, as I escorted Michaela, a lap dancer who slapped him after sex through the front door, I felt very strongly that I needed to avenge the slap.
I spat in her face.
That's in his works.
In his book.
Totally.
And what's in, I do think, you know, one of the things that all of the media, both from tabloid to sort of broadsheet and indeed television, everybody has questions to answer here because everybody lends him respectability in different ways.
You know, I mean, the Newsnight interview, you know, where he's taken, you know, this is a man whose ideas are absurd.
And yet, you know, the BBC gives him a platform as though he's a good idea.
He brought to Parliament to talk about drug laws.
Well, Ed Miller Band basically had him trying to prop up his deputy prime minister.
There's this ridiculous idea that somehow he has this connection with young people.
The Guardian had him, I mean, Anna Rosbridge has been very pompous about this on Twitter and very highfalutic.
He had him next to him in the Guardian editorial conference, sitting next to Rushbridge and he's dictating what's going to happen to the paper.
So I think how you legitimise somebody, how you give them respectability, how you give them this cloak, which allows them to do some really terrible things.
I think, you know, there are questions for everybody.
Well, let me bring it in.
One other thing, which I think is really, really important in all of this, is that we have to look at our own culture over the last two decades.
And I feel so strongly that the proliferation of pornography, which has been facilitated by the World Wide Web, has turned, has normalized behavior.
I mean, we were joking about the 90s and what that was like, but that was not aggressive and it wasn't anything to do with violence against women.
What's become normalized amongst young people who've had their sex education delivered to them through the internet without any kind of guidance is that this is normal behavior, that it is funny.
I mean, if you listen to clips of him doing live performances where he's saying some of the vilest things I've ever heard, you'll hear men and women laughing in the audience because somehow we've decided that he got a standing ovation on the day this all dropped that night on stage, which I found very disconcerting to watch.
I mean, I would make the point which we made yesterday is that since the Me Too and Time's Up campaigns in particular, a lot of this stuff looking back to the kind of banter as it was described at the time, you know, he won the Shagger of the Year award at the Sun three years running.
Everyone thought that was funny, right?
No one was as morally outraged as they are now.
I do think the moral conviction of Brand historically is pretty intense right now and probably perfectly justified.
It's a crime, but I think that the way in which you humiliate and disparage people and the sorts of things that he's describing, that's not about promising about a blatant disregard of women.
Let me bring in Douglas again.
Douglas, if you're listening patiently to this, I suppose the point about this is there is a theory, which we had at King's Council yesterday talking to us, that all this does, all this social media speculation, all the raging opinions on either side, they actually make it incredibly difficult for him ever to face a fair trial, if he ever faced a trial at all.
Therefore, justice itself doesn't get served.
It gets damaged by this.
That's another part of the equation.
Well, look, there's some truth in that.
I just wanted to turn to something that Robert said earlier, which is that, first of all, it was a sort of open secret in the media.
Whenever the general public discover there's a sort of open secret in the media, the general public always asks, well, why did the media keep it to itself?
And it's a perfectly legitimate question to ask.
And the second question to ask, point to make, if I may, is Robert said everyone enabled him.
That's not true.
I can give a list of the people who enabled him.
The BBC, Channel 4, The Guardian that hosted him as a columnist as well as an attendee at editorial conferences, the new statesman that made him the editor for one issue.
And this is important because this was at the height of the allegations that were made against him.
At this same time, if I may point out, Charles Moore at The Telegraph and the Spectator pointed out that Russell Brand's behavior was so abhorrent at the BBC that he would no longer pay the BBC license fee.
It was not the case that everyone fell for this charlatan.
It was not the case that everyone thought he was God's gift and that he could swing an election.
It was a very strange time on the British left.
And it was the British left that enabled him now.
And I could just make this one point.
I don't want to be partisan about this because there's a non-part, but it is important to note that as Russell Brand has, in my view, given himself cover by fleeing to this weird far-right conspiracy place, almost nobody on the right of the spectrum has welcomed him.
I mean, the Telegraph is not giving him guest columns.
He is not being invited into the editorial meetings of the Telegraph.
There is some responsibility that the people who enabled him in Britain should take.
Instead of, as always, covering it wildly.
Sorry, but you can't make this a political thing.
The government of the day, and not Labour, facilitated him and invited him to speak in Parliament about what should be drug policy in this country.
How on earth he would have any sort of credibility in that sphere, I've no idea.
The fact of the matter is that what we're dealing with is someone who is clearly a sex predator.
Well, hang on.
Hang on, Fierce pointed out.
Tablois like the Sun thought he was a fact that he can draw an audience that's kept him in business.
Which is economic.
You are calling him a sex predator.
He's a sex predator.
He said it himself.
I've got four quotes, all by him.
I know.
Which to me is your analysis of his on what he says.
He would dispute that.
But you called him a sex predator.
No, no, I didn't question.
I did, but he didn't mind that at all.
Well, he did.
He objected immediately.
He said, I resent the word predator, right?
So he doesn't categorize.
He says he was wildly promiscuous, loved sex with thousands of women.
But that's not a crime.
The question is, has what he's done actually become criminality?
The Sunday Times.
He's been accused of rape.
Yeah, he's been accused of crime.
I painted Valentine's Day.
He has a picture and begged until she kissed me.
I lied and danced and evoked the spirit of Pan till reluctantly she removed her bra.
I used tears and emotional blackmail to secure the immolation of her knickers.
I mean, you know, I don't have to say anything.
I think it's bits of.
When did that book come out?
It came out, I think, 2004.
Right.
So I don't remember any action being taken about the book, right?
I don't even know who published it.
I'm not an expert on Russell Brand.
But I am an expert on sexism in society, and I don't think that you can call it an either right-wing or a left-wing or indeed a more a non-mainstream thing.
I'm everywhere.
I'm not going to defend Russell Brand.
I want to see how this plays out.
But he's also a very good idea.
But everyone else says, There is one small point, just to pick up something that Douglas said.
I was, you know, in terms of who may be, you know, right now one of the most absolutely most powerful people in the world, definitely not on the left.
Elon Musk, you know, said, you know, like the competition.
No, no, no, you know, no wonder they're coming after you.
So, you know, he has been endorsed by people of all shades, shall we say.
But I can think of a lot of rock stars.
He's got Andrew Tate right behind him.
No, no, no.
I mean, when I first met in the music business, when you were a music PR, there were lots of rock stars and pop stars who were behaving just like Russell Brand and boasting about it.
Morals and no one's saying he's unique.
That's the tragedy.
That's what I'm trying to say.
But why?
As a cultural society.
I think what's changed, wild, brazen, boastful promiscuity by male celebrities used to be celebrated.
It definitely isn't now.
There's been a shift in the way these are viewed morals.
There has always been a line, though.
The line of line is sorry.
Can we just look at Andrew Tate and his enormous success?
He boasts about his sexuality all the time.
I mean, it's not that it's a thing of the past.
It's just that Russell Brand is the object of our ire at the moment.
But what we're not doing is shifting whatever the expression is.
You know, we need to change the culture.
I totally agree.
I totally agree.
If I may, very quickly, Piers.
Very quickly.
There's one very quick point to make, if I may, which is that there's a question of due process here that you've rightly raised.
And many people have been saying, well, how could the girls in question, the young women in question, get a fair trial?
I think that's an incredibly important point to raise.
But one of the answers is how few rape accusations actually make it through, not just to trial and to conviction.
And I would like to see in our society not just these high-profile celebrity-related cases going to trial and getting more success, but think of the hundreds of girls in places like Telford who raped in recent years.
Want equal justice across the board and not just on celebrity cases.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I think we can all agree on that.
I think we all agree Robert, you've got a brilliant new thriller, the Crash.
It's not the story of Russell Brand, although it could be.
Um, it couldn't be, and the mainstream media on the back couldn't be more excited by this.
You've quoted every paper saying it's the greatest book of all time.
Give me a very quick summary of what this is.
So it's a story about the crash.
As it says, it's sat in 2007 2008, a story that um, I was sort of somewhat immersed in.
And it's basically about central character, journalist at the BBC.
I wonder where I got that idea from.
Who's on off, who's on-off girlfriend is found hanged in her flat.
And it's a story about the abuse of power by people at the top of big organizations, something we've just been talking about, and his quest to find out why she died.
Excellent.
And he's taken all the sexy bits out on the advice.
It's quite our sex.
They're just our sex scenes, as it were.
It's a sort of nuance.
You knew where the line was.
You knew where the line was.
I knew it.
Well, certainly in terms of good taste, I knew in the mind.
Robert, Mariela, thank you very, very much indeed.
Journalists Expose And Reveal Truths 00:09:24
Thank you to Douglas.
A renewal.
Well, uncensored next.
Last night, a top lawyer told me the media coverage of the brand scandal could prevent a fair trial, where media executives face a stampede of questions about what they knew and when.
Who better to ask about all this than media titan Andrew Neal, former editor of the Sunday Times?
He joins me now.
Welcome back.
Lots of media organizations from Channel 4 to the BBC and The Guardian are facing tough questions over the apparently open secret of Russell Brand's behavior.
But the spotlight's also been turned on journalists who reported the claims against him.
Brand's defenders asked, why now?
Why didn't they go to police?
And legal experts have warned he'll have no prospect of a fair trial, given all this open speculation.
Joining me now to discuss this is the broadcaster informal editor of the Sunday Times, Andrew Neal.
Andrew, great to have you on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Thank you for coming on.
Can't think of anyone better placed than you, a former editor of the Sunday Times.
Let me start with their investigation.
When you read it, what was your verdict professionally as a piece of investigative journalism?
When I read it and finished it, I was very proud of the Sunday Times.
It was exactly in the tradition of that newspaper's history of investigative journalism.
When I took over as editor, that tradition had died a little bit.
I did my best when I was there to put investigative journalism back into the center of it.
We've got a lot of great investigative stories.
The famous Insight Team, probably the most famous investigative unit in the world, had new life in it.
And that has continued.
You know, people often say, oh, investigative journalism is dead.
Well, this shows that it isn't.
It was meticulous.
It was unhurried.
They took over four years.
Investigative journalism is expensive and not quick.
You've got to get things right.
You've got to get a lawyer sometimes.
The life of its lawyer out of it.
And of course, they gave Mr. Brand eight days to respond.
And you and I know as ex-editors, Piers, that given the ability in Britain to get gagging injunctions to stop publication of stories, that was quite a dangerous thing to do.
So I think they did everything the right way.
They presented it correctly.
They got the research done correctly.
They laid it out.
And let's see where it goes from here.
Yeah, and I think that's the crucial bit for me is that lots of people jumping on various bandwagons here, many racing to say, well, he's obviously guilty.
That's it.
He must be cancelled forever from everything, which is already happening corporately.
Others going the other way saying, no, it's all a conspiracy by mainstream media, which of course is, I think, a lot of nonsense.
I'm sure you share that view.
I've seen your tweets about that.
So what we're left with is where this will go legally.
And there is a concern by the legal world that this may already actually no longer be able to go to a courtroom because of all the prejudicial materials been out there.
What do you say to that?
It's the usual self-pleading of lawyers who don't like journalists, but they don't like us as much as we don't like lawyers.
And, you know, if you follow this line, then we do nothing.
We do no serious journalism at all.
Oh, we can't publish this.
It might affect a fair trial somewhere at some unspecified period down the pike.
And I would just point out, if it wasn't for the Sunday Times Channel 4 investigation, you and I wouldn't be talking about the possibility of criminal proceedings in the first place.
There'd be plenty of time to get to that.
It's only because of this investigative journalism that there's even now the possibility.
We don't know whether it will happen or not, at least the possibility of criminal proceedings taking place.
That wouldn't have happened without this investigation.
So I really think that is a way of trying to stop journalists doing their proper job.
We need more of this, not less.
Yeah, and actually, I was reminding people yesterday, the Harvey Weinstein scandal was broken by journalists, women going to journalists who then published the revelations that led to a police investigation.
And now he's languishing in prison probably the rest of his life.
But that started the same way.
And I think for the women involved, this is very important too.
We know how difficult it is for women to come forward in these circumstances.
We know the pressures not to do are huge.
And it could be in this case, as in the Weinstein case, that women speaking to journalists, to newspapers first, is an interim stage before it then results in wider proceedings and facilitates their ability to do so.
And I think that's another plus too.
But there is, you know, there's a bedrock of a democratic society, which is innocent till proven guilty.
And that's not proven guilty by a newspaper or by social media.
Ultimately, it has to be proven in a court of law.
And I have a view about this, that whatever you think of Russell Brand, and you can make your own mind up about his morals from everything he said himself, Mariella read out some pretty disturbing stuff early from his own book, his own words.
I read some from an interview I did with him, the GQ, which now looks pretty unsavory.
But he remains at the moment somebody who should be considered innocent till proven guilty by the law, shouldn't he?
Yes, and that's our way of doing things.
But, you know, the newspaper is not, or Channel 4, they're not trying and convicting him.
That's not their job.
Their job is to put information.
Don't forget, the best definition of journalism is to put into the public domain facts that powerful people don't want to see in the public domain.
And this is a classic example of that.
This isn't trial by media.
The newspaper and the television station have done their job.
It is now, if this is going to be a trial, that's a job for the police.
That's a job for the prosecution service.
That's a job for the courts.
Not the job for the newspapers to do that.
Their job is to expose and reveal.
That's what they've done.
Whether we go forward into criminal matters is another matter entirely, not for the media to decide.
But I think the one thing that we do already know is whether criminality is involved or not, which, as I say, is not for mere journalists to decide.
It's pretty clear there was some egregious behavior going on here, some behavior that anybody should be ashamed of, and that major media companies were complicit.
And I think we're seeing a lot of hypocrisy now because I see all these people now rushing to disassociate themselves from Russell Brand.
Well, I'm going to ask a fundamental question.
Why were they ever associated with him in the first place?
For me, some of the most revealing footage in the documentary was not the investigative journalism, strong as it was.
It was his performances as a so-called stand-up comedian, in which he was neither funny, but consistently vulgar, rude, and unwatchable.
Why did the BBC, why did Channel 4?
Why did The Guardian?
Why did the New Statesman?
Why did the Labour Party ever want it to be associated with essentially this sleaze bag in the first place?
You know, you know, I mean, I think to play Devil's Advocate, the answer, I would imagine, is although you found him grotesque and unfunny, clearly a lot of people found him hilarious.
They just did.
You know, he sold buckets of books.
He put loads of ratings onto television programs.
He wrote columns that were widely disseminated and enjoyed.
So he's one of those very polarizing figures.
And he does have, I mean, he's got six and a half million people subscribed to his YouTube channel.
There's a huge following there.
And I'm sure that if you and I put public hands on our program, it'd be pretty good for ratings for a while as well.
You know, there are some things as standards and, you know, particularly in Britain, where there's this strong tradition of public service broadcasting and not just doing it for the money, not just doing it because it's commercial, because it gives big ratings.
It was two public service broadcasters, the VBC and Channel 4, which facilitated this guy to do it.
And they shouldn't have done.
And, you know, we have an ability in our culture.
I think it's true in America and parts of Europe, but above all in Britain, where we elevate people of no talent, people of no redeeming value whatsoever, to the status of national icons.
I give you Jimmy Sandel.
He's a classic example of that.
A man of no talent who had a hotline to Margaret Thatcher and the royal family.
And in a different way, I'm not comparing the two in terms of what they did.
In a different way, we elevated Russell Brown to be this man that seemed to have the pulse of young people in British society, whose every word we should hang on and was worthy of interviews on the BBC's news night or in Guardian conferences or editing the new statesman.
It's just nonsense.
And this power of celebrity, which seems to have the ability to make sensible people stupid, this is another classic example of it.
And it is corrosive of our culture and what is good in it.
Andrew Neal, I think in cricket parlance, you've just come off the long run.
And I appreciate you joining the program.
There's a good cricket match going on here.
That's the year England won the Ashes.
Fantastic.
Well, then it's an appropriate analogy.
Andrew, great to talk to you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Yes.
Well, I'll say so next tonight.
Celebrity Power Corrosive To Culture 00:08:16
Rugby legend Danny Cipriani is surviving the storm when the most private of stories about you goes public.
Welcome back to Piers Wilkins Center.
Danny Cipriani is one of England's greatest rugby talents, playing for England, Gloucester and Bath, among others, and doing it with such flair and brilliance.
But it was life off the field that dominated many headlines.
His challenges with addictions and relationships with celebrity girlfriends put him back on the front pages as much as rugby put him onto the back ones.
In his new book, Who Am I? He shares the truth behind those headlines.
I'm glad to say I'm joined by Danny.
Danny, great to see you.
Love the book.
Love the honesty.
Love the fact you just gave yourself as hard a time as anyone else has ever given you.
But you kind of self-explored at the same time about who you are.
And it's interesting reading it because there's no, I'm not going to compare you to Russell Brand, but in certain parts of his story, there are parallels.
One, he rises and becomes this huge sort of celebrity figure.
He's a bit of a sex addict and you talk very openly about that in your book and the way he talks about all the women he's sleeping with and so on may be unthinkable to a lot of people.
To you are like, yeah, well, I've been there.
I've led that kind of very promiscuous life.
Just on that, when you come out the other end after being through that, do you ever look back and do you feel a sense of shame about it?
Or do you feel, no, that was all part of me being a younger guy?
I carried a lot of shame for a while.
And even though you're behaving in a way which you're trying to gain some momentary pleasure or some feel within it to feel good in that moment or release yourself from the chaotic nature of your mind, there often comes low and down periods off that as well and you're then constantly trying to distract yourselves in other ways.
I wouldn't have labeled myself an adult addict because then that's something else I've got to get over.
But I was definitely always trying to feel better in some way and I lent into some substance.
I lent into frequenting women in the way I did.
But by carrying the shame, when I met my beautiful wife and I bared all to her and we went through some tough periods in 12 months because there was things within me that I held on to for so long because the nature of my behavior actually stemmed from some form of pain and I held on to that and I did feel like I was one of the worst people in the world and carried all this shame.
But when you find someone that sees you for you and shows you love and I was able to sit with it and let that melt away, you know, I recognize it's just part of the past.
Interestingly, I've talked to Russell Brand over the years, different times of his life and career.
And in the GQ one in 2006, he was his full promiscuous, boastful worst, as many people would see it.
Very different character I interviewed later when he himself got married and then had kids and so on.
Certainly abandoned a lot of that rhetoric.
It looked like he's sort of grown up, for want of a better phrase.
But he's now facing trial, possibly a real one, but at the moment, trial by media and social media.
You've been in that position, not quite like he has or for the same reasons, but you've been on the receiving end of a lot of judgmental stuff about you and how you lead your life.
What's it like to be in the eye of a tabloid storm?
Yeah, so for me, the allegations weren't as serious as the ones that Russell are facing.
It was often judgment on my behaviors and, you know, immature and certain things that were behaving in my life.
You know, but when you are in that middle of it and you're trying to figure out who you are and those are snippets of your life that are getting written about, you know, it can really affect you and your psyche.
You know, I've lived that through with Caroline and everything that happened to people.
I was judged by social media, judged by how everyone's going on it.
You know, the nature of the media, they know what they were doing in terms of revealing all these allegations.
And now Russell's getting judged left, right, and center from everyone.
And, you know, you can't condone his behaviour.
Do you see parallels, obviously, different circumstances, different allegations?
But you and I were both talking to Caroline.
You obviously dated her and you were very close to her, closer than I was.
But I was trying to help her, give her some advice behind the scenes in that last period of her life because I knew that she was, you could tell, she was on the edge, you know.
And it's very hard because she's the one on the receiving end Of it, and it was vicious and relentless, and it led to the tragic eventuality of her taking her life.
When you see that and you look at what's happening to Russell Brand, or we've seen it with Philip Schofield earlier this year, Hugh Edwards and others, do you feel sympathy for them regardless of the circumstance?
They're all separate instances, aren't they?
They're all separate cases.
Caroline was a five-foot woman, and her boyfriend was six foot five, and he was well within his right to protect himself in that fashion.
And what transpired there was what happened.
But the nature of how the media then turned on her, how they turn and they decide to create the whole fanfare around it, it does put the individual under pressure.
But then ultimately, you know, we need to wait for the judicial process.
We need to wait for the truth of that.
But it's already happened now because social media and the media and every single news outlet is judging and critiquing people that are involved left, right, and center.
And it may be in Russell Brand's case that it's thoroughly deserved and he turns out to be this vile sexual predator that the allegations suggest, or it may be that he's not.
I just don't think we're quite there yet because it's one version of events put forward by these women who should absolutely be listened to and respected and they should have their say.
But he's also entitled to defend himself if necessary in a court of law.
For sure.
The only thing I can relate to recently is the excerpts on my book and how people took certain snippets and created stories on the back of that.
But when you read the whole book, it's a very different story.
In this sense, you know, we need to wait for the judicial process and let that go down the line because ultimately everyone now has a judgment on Russell left or right and it's splitting people.
It's creating a real negative soundbite in our nation.
But very tribal, isn't it?
Everyone's taking a view.
Everyone's got to be one side or the other.
I'm kind of in the middle, right?
I'm not defending him, but nor am I saying he should be automatically cancelled from everything because I don't think we've gone through proper due process yet.
Yeah, you can't condone the allegations whatsoever.
They're very serious.
So it is important that we let the judicial process go ahead, as you said.
You have a strange connection, not a strange, it's just a connection, but you went out with Kirsty Gallagher, the TV presenter.
Her sister is married to Russell Brand.
Have you had any contact with Kirsty about this?
I haven't, no.
I met Russell and you know, he was a lovely, lovely guy, and he obviously had turned his life around.
But, you know, at some point, you know, we need to find out more of the facts later down the line rather than the trial continuing the fashion that it is.
Very hard for Kirsty's sister.
I mean, she's pregnant.
Yeah.
They've already got two daughters, I think.
Very tough for her, isn't it?
Yeah, for sure.
It's going to be a tough situation for all involved.
And all it's doing is creating negative sound bites and negative conversations and more stuff in the media that people are going to just create more judgment and more critique on the whole scenario.
We need to remember that the victims involved in allegations that are serious, but we also need to wait for the due process rather than sitting here pointing fingers, making judgments, because ultimately that's the nature of the media and what they create.
It's actually social media is a bigger problem because everyone's got an opinion.
They all want to spew their opinions.
They're incredibly judgmental and there's no real restrictions on what people can do on social media.
They can say what they like.
I mean, I've seen people say the most terrible things about people all this year that I've known.
A lot of it totally inaccurate.
Yeah, but the social media wouldn't kick in if the mainstream media didn't print the stories in such an early fashion in the way they have.
You know, and it's not, this isn't a story.
These are people's lives at risk.
The victims who have the allegations have been made and also against Russell.
So rather than this become another story and another drama, we should wait for the judicial process and we should wait for that to play out because people's lives on both sides are all going to get affected.
Social Media Judgment Runs Wild 00:02:46
You were my kind of sportsman.
You play with Flair.
You were different.
You didn't play by the normal rule book.
You got into trouble a few times.
You're a bit of a naughty boy.
All my favourites, right?
From Ian Botham to Ben Stokes to Gather to George Bett, whoever it may be.
I like sportsmen that are slightly flawed, if that's not a disrespectful thing to say.
And reading your book, I love the fact that you're all those things, but also slightly vulnerable.
I mean, when you got to the end of the book, what did you feel you learned about yourself?
For me, it was a very revealing process of going over times that I, you know, for me, the sport part was easy.
The training was the fun bit.
The games was the fun bit, and I felt very inflow.
I felt very in the moment, and I could go and express myself and play at an extremely high level.
But my life off the field was disrupted a lot because of my own upbringing, my trauma involved, and everything that I'd been through.
And also, I was going through life alone.
I didn't have much port of call to turn to.
So I was figuring out a lot of things on my own.
So when I looked back and went through the whole book and I was able to share and express from a loving place and the wisdom of the experience, it was really cathartic to be able to release that because I wasn't feeling the same constraints or the confliction that I felt at that point.
So it shows that through time and moving on, you can let go and turn your pain into purpose and turn that into love.
You wish you were in the England team playing in the World Cup?
I'm enjoying watching it.
I'd always love to be involved playing at some point.
But for me, you know, I'm enjoying watching it and I'm enjoying this whole process and everything that's coming my way.
Well, you know, Danny, a lot of people had views about you, good, bad, and ugly.
And when I read the more negative stuff, I judge people how I find them.
You and I have had a lot of chat over the years.
We don't really know each other, but we just have.
We had various connections, Caroline and others.
But the thing that I remember most about you, I had a friend of mine from my village called Wayne who had terminal cancer.
And he put on a day, a rugby day, to raise money for a cancer charity.
And I just sent you a message saying, if there's anything you could offer for the auction.
And you sent a huge bag of stuff with your shirt, your boots, some tickets to games.
It was a whole load of stuff, just like that.
And I judge people how I found them.
And you're one of the good guys.
And he massively appreciated that and raised a lot of money off the back of it.
So thank you for that.
I've never had a chance to say it publicly.
I appreciate it.
But I appreciated that.
And I love the book.
I think the book is called Who Am I.
I think the answer is you're probably a bit flawed like all of us, but you're essentially a good bloke.
And you've ended up in a good place.
Very much so.
And if I'd been running the England rugby team, you'd be there in the team.
I appreciate it.
Richard Branson Defends Russell Brand 00:05:55
Dazzling like you always used to.
It weren't too bad, was it?
It was great, mate.
You were a great player.
Good to see you.
Cheers on you, mate.
On sense of next, should YouTube have the power to demonetise Russell Brown before he's been convicted of any crime?
The Piers Pack returns next.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan on Senate.
So with me are my pack legal journalist Avisantina, talk to me presenter British Tyson, talk to me contributor Paula Rohan.
Adrian, well, you were steamed up last night about this and it was actually, you made some great points.
Richard, not had your view on this year.
What is your view?
Where are we on this Russell Brown scan?
I'm not a Russell Brown fan at all.
I think he's vulgar.
Frankly, I think a lot of what he said and does has been absolutely vile.
My question, though, is that, you know, you've got this very serious investigation that's taken a very long time.
I was slightly surprised that they didn't immediately pass their files to the police.
And also, as far as I'm aware, the four alleged victims in this have not yet made a complaint to the police, although that may have changed in the last year.
Another woman has come.
Someone else has who has gone straight to the police.
I just find that strange, odd.
Well, Paula, you've been in family law.
Do you find that strange?
Not at all.
I don't find that strange at all.
And Richard, this is one of the myths that we need to bust.
The fact that somehow the victim is not a victim if they don't report the alleged crime within a certain period of time.
That's simply not true.
Remember, for the survivor, and I do prefer the word survivor of abuse, they live that every day.
This isn't about what happened last week or a year ago or two weeks or two years ago.
It's what's happened to them and they live it every day.
And the fact that they are strong enough to come forward today or tomorrow is not something that should be questioned or judged.
Oh, well, hang on.
Hold on.
Here's what I would say to that.
We had this debate last night, but I'm going to say it again because I've written a column for the Sun about this.
I have a problem when we use language like victims and survivors when this is an ongoing process because it implies we've already reached a guilty verdict that this man is guilty of crimes.
These are his victims and they are survivors.
To me, they're accusers.
And I would say the same if it was male accusers.
We had all this with Cliff Richard, where a male accuser accused him of sexual assault.
It turned out to be complete nonsense.
By which time, Cliff Richard's reputation trashed, BBC flying over his house.
He eventually won a lawsuit.
But the language is important.
You know, we have a situation where people have made very serious allegations.
If Russell Brand is found guilty of these, then absolutely throw the book at him because he's not entitled at the moment to at least have the language tempered around these are allegations.
So when we're, I'm not specifically referencing Russell Brand, and I can't because it would be inappropriate for me to do so.
We are talking about allegations.
There's been no arrest yet.
There is an ongoing thing.
Normally what happens.
I just want to answer your question, Piers, about you being uncomfortable with the language.
I'm not uncomfortable with the language.
I choose to use the word survivor and that's what I'll continue to do.
And let me explain to you why.
Because we know that sexual assaults are underreported, be that male or female survivors.
We know that it's accepted.
And when you look at incidences of non-reporting, let me explain to you.
One in two rapes are committed by a partner or ex-partner.
Six out of seven of those are perpetrated by somebody who the person knew.
What you have in a situation where you are dating somebody, where you know somebody, where you are flirting with somebody, is you are incredibly embarrassed on top of the pain and suffering that you've had.
I get all this.
I get all this.
Normally, when criminal is...
I also interviewed an 18-year-old boy earlier this year who was put in remand in prison for two months, accused of being a rapist.
It turned out the woman who accused him was total fantasist, who had caused her own injuries and is now languishing in jail, by which time his house had been doormed with rapists and so on.
So that's why I think you've got to be careful.
I want to bring, you've been very patient, Ava.
Specifically about the corporate meltdown that's going on with Russell Brand, YouTube have now said, well, he can leave his videos up there so they can make money from it, but he can't make any money from advertising.
Does that seem right and proper to you?
Well, I use YouTube every day.
It's one of our main platforms.
And actually, that money will just be held for him.
So if he's then found innocent or found not guilty or he's cleared, then YouTube can re-grant him access to that pot.
So he's actually not losing any money.
It's just being stored in a pot.
Basically, what YouTube have said is you put out a video denying allegations and you had a little donate button on there and we're not comfortable.
Google aren't comfortable with that.
So they've taken away his ability to monetize it.
I also want to talk about the lad culture because I think we were talking about this upstairs.
I think the big problem on social media and the reason that it's had the reaction that it has, a lot of people defending Russell Brand, is because a lot of men felt vindicated by that lad culture that was going on in the 2000s, that real tabloid, dirty, treating women like filth, lad culture.
And I think a lot of men are now worried that they're going to have their actions reassessed by people in their lives who were there during that time.
And I think there's kind of this defense of him is coming from that place of, oh, if they're going for him, they're going to come for me as well.
Possibly.
I think.
That's possible.
I don't like the extremities on either side of this debate.
I don't like the ones who want to immediately convict and hang him.
I don't like the ones saying it's all a conspiracy.
He's being stitched up by mainstream media.
We've run out of time.
Thank you, Pat.
Great to see you.
I've got to mention your earrings, which are fabulous.
That's it from me.
We're here, Rob to keep it uncensored and sparkle like all that.
Good night.
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