Russell Brand during his Southwark Crown Court trial. Courtesy of Getty Convicted rapist Russell Brand is facing allegations of sexual misconduct from at least six more women in a new report from The Times and Netflix’s Russell Brand: Open Secret documentary.
The disgraced comedian and actor is behind bars after being sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison on Monday. He was found guilty of one rape and three sexual assaults, and cleared on three other counts, in a landmark trial. The Hollywood Reporter has taken a deep dive into the years-long work to expose Brand as a sexual predator and bring him to justice.
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Upon his sentencing, the Met Police had confirmed Brand was under investigation for two more alleged rapes.
And then on Thursday, The Times revealed that he has been accused of predatory behavior and misconduct by another six women. This report has come from the two journalists who led the 2023 joint investigation into Brand by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches, which helped other victims of his decide to speak up and, ultimately, press criminal charges.
From Charlotte Wace and Rosamund Urwin, the investigation includes an accusation that Brand had sex with a woman without her consent, then apologized afterwards. Another woman said that he continued having sex with her after she asked him to stop because he was hurting her. She says he later told her: “Tonight was consensual. Nobody did anything they didn’t want to do.”
The Times added that these allegations “could not be reported until the criminal case against the former comedian and actor ended, to avoid prejudicing proceedings.” Wace and Urwin wrote that his lawyer said he would consider “injunctive relief” and demanded further time to respond, but the deadline eventually passed with no response — “despite prompts.”
Brand maintained through his trial that all of his interactions were consensual.
Wace and Urwin spoke to a woman called Vicky, who met Brand multiple times for consensual sex. On their final meeting, she says he initiated intimacy without any warning. “My body wasn’t ready for this and it was painful,” Vicky told The Times. “An uneasy wave hits me and I’m scared. And I say, ‘It’s painful,’ and he doesn’t stop. And then it gets worse and it’s really painful. And I say, ‘Stop,’ and he doesn’t stop.” She said: “It was like… he wasn’t present.”
Another woman, called Zoe, said during their 2013 encounter — after Brand had split from pop star Katy Perry — he “grabbed me and manhandled me around a little bit and he put his hand on my throat. […] And then he shoved his other hand down my trousers and penetrated me with his finger.” She told The Times she froze. “I didn’t resist. I just sort of let it happen.”
The final allegation from The Times‘ latest piece of investigative work is from 2015 — when Brand was in a relationship with his now-wife and mother of his children, Laura, who accompanied him every day to court. She told the jury that Brand is a “caring and kind” person and a “wonderful father” to their three children.
Louise, then in her late 20s, worked at a London venue that Brand frequented. One day, a woman approached Louise and asked where he was. “I thought it was just another obsessive fan… She told me she was his girlfriend, but others had said that too.” It was Laura Gallacher, who had dated Brand briefly in 2007 when she was 19 and he was 31. They rekindled their relationship in 2015.
Louise said on one occasion, one of Brand’s staff told her, “‘Russell wants you,'” and that he was in the disabled toilets. Brand tried to “entice her” to come to the lavatory door, and had turned the lights off when she arrived. When Brand claimed he needed toilet paper, she went to hand it to him and he grabbed her. “It was halfway up my forearm, and I tried to get away. When I stepped back, I realized his [member of staff] was standing right behind me,” she recalls. She feared Brand would sexually assault her and managed to slip away. She went into the next room and cried, because “I felt like a piece of meat.”
Both Wace and Urwin contributed to Netflix’s Friday release, Russell Brand: Open Secret, which also included allegations against the convicted sex offender. The film described the experience of an ex-girlfriend of his, under the pseudonym Emily. She said she “literally begged” Brand to stop after he refused to wear a condom during sex. “I said to him, ‘No, Russell, please, let’s just use protection,'” said an actress playing Emily in the film. “I kept saying ‘No’. I said, ‘Stop Russell, stop, please don’t, please.’ […] I literally begged him. I tried to kick him off, I tried to draw my knees back, to kick him in his belly, but he was too strong for me.” She says he “just pinned my hands back behind my head” before forcing himself on her.
Brand is likely to serve around seven years of his prison sentence. Questions have been raised across the industry about how he was able to evade punishment for as long as he did. On Tuesday, another of his ex-girlfriends, Jemima Goldsmith, accused Brand of “violence, coercive control and abuse” while they were together.
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