The formerly sex-crazed celebrity is in a mess of his own making.
The formerly sex-crazed celebrity is in a mess of his own making.
R ussell Brand, the English comedian, actor, and recently alternative broadcaster, was in the middle of a stand-up tour when he was given eight days to respond to allegations of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse said to have occurred between 2006 and 2013 and soon to be published in a combined investigation by the Times (of London), the Sunday Times, and Channel 4 Dispatches.
In a video shared with his social-media followers, Brand maintained his innocence, arguing that despite being “very, very promiscuous,” his sexual relationships were “absolutely always consensual.” He alluded to “witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives” of these mainstream media outlets’ “coordinated attack.” The Times, incorporating these remarks, published its story last Saturday.
What followed was swift and merciless. Brand’s tour was canceled. His management company dropped him as a client. YouTube demonetized his channel. A U.K. government minister sent letters to social-media companies expressing “concerns” that Brand may be profiting off their platforms.
With typical hypocrisy, outlets that had happily platformed Brand in his prime as a pathological womanizer — such as the Guardian, the BBC, the New Statesman, and Channel 4 — are now leading the charge against him. As Sebastian Milbank writes at the Critic: “Progressive opinion will try to make him an object lesson in the dangers of powerful men. It will ignore the fact that Brand’s power is entirely the product of progressive opinion delighting in precisely the behaviour they now profess to be horrified by.”
Some have suggested that Brand is being attacked for his political views. Elon Musk suggested that mainstream media “don’t like the competition.” Tucker Carlson wrote, “Criticize the drug companies, question the war in Ukraine, and you can be pretty sure this is going to happen.” Ben Shapiro asked why these allegations surfaced only after Brand had “fixed his life” (i.e., gone through rehab, gotten married for the second time, and had children). These and other skeptics note that the Brand case has the hallmarks of a Me Too witch hunt: accusers tracked down by journalists and cloaked in anonymity, the noninvolvement of law enforcement at the time of the alleged crimes, and so on. They are unmoved by the counter-argument that a low conviction rate for rape combined with Brand’s power at the height of his fame might have discouraged potential accusers.
Yet unlike some of the Me Too movement’s past targets, the allegations mounted against Brand appear to be credible. The evidence provided by journalists is specific and compelling. Brand’s very public and well-documented interactions with women at that stage of his career also fit the pattern of behavior described by his accusers.
One of Brand’s accusers, “Nadia,” who previously had consensual sex with the comedian, claims that in July 2012, on an occasion when she refused intercourse, he raped her against a wall at his Los Angeles home. Nadia was able to provide proof of having been treated at a rape crisis center the same date, as well as text messages between herself and Brand seemingly discussing the assault. “When a girl say[s] NO it means no,” she wrote. Brand replied that he was “very sorry.”
Another woman, “Alice,” says that she had a three-month relationship with Brand when he was 30 and she was 16 (which is the age of consent in the U.K.) and still at school and recovering from an eating disorder. During the relationship, Alice alleges Brand engaged in “grooming” behavior and was emotionally abusive and controlling. She says he called her “the child,” delighted in taking her virginity, and on one occasion “forced his penis down her throat,” causing her to choke, which he stopped doing only after she punched him in the stomach. After the alleged assault Alice said she began crying, to which Brand allegedly responded that he “only wanted to see [her] mascara run anyway.”
Another woman, “Rachel,” claims that when she was 24 and working for Brand’s TV show on Channel 4, he flashed his penis at her “and insinuated that she could give him oral sex.” Another woman, “Phoebe,” who was in her twenties, says she had a brief consensual relationship with Brand that was over by the time he allegedly attacked her in early 2013. She was working with Brand at the time and says she was left alone with him at his L.A. home when he began to chase her, pinned her to a bed where she “kept begging him to get off her, and eventually he relented.” After the alleged assault Phoebe says Brand became “super angry” and fired her on the spot.
There are other accounts as well. They’re only half the story, of course, but the report is far from a hatchet job. The investigation was yearslong and consisted of hundreds of sources (which are detailed), reviews of private emails, text messages, Freedom of Information Act requests, medical and therapists’ notes, and Brand’s publicly available works. The U.K. has sensitive libel laws, and there can be little doubt that the Times has done its due diligence.
The case seems poised for a criminal trial, the necessary venue for discerning whether criminal allegations can be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Brand claims to have evidence of his own to prove the consensual nature of these sexual relationships. And we should hear it.
But aside from not being a criminal, it’s not as if Brand has a good reputation to preserve. By his own admission, his past sexual behavior — the basis of his brand and the source of his vast fortune and fame — includes visiting prostitutes, spitting in the face of a stripper, manipulating women into sleeping with him, reducing women to tears through oral sex, and relishing the “challenge of chaste maids.” In Brand’s second memoir, Booky Wook 2, he writes: “What kind of man was I? Treating women in this way? If this is what I’m telling you, can you imagine what’s being left out?”
Ben Shapiro’s suggestion is that, while Brand’s past behavior was “gross,” it was also years ago and he has since settled down and become a “good person.” The road to maturity may take many forms — but should we overlook the giant trail of misery and filth Brand has left behind him? We might be inclined to do so, if he was at all remorseful. But on the contrary, while Brand admits to having been a “sex addict,” he has also said on multiple occasions that he has “no regrets” about any of his past.
Oh, sure, he has been “transparent” about it. In fact, in his video response to the investigation, he says that “to see that transparency metastasize into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, Is there another agenda at play?” But one possible “agenda at play” here might be the culture, mired in contradiction, struggling to redraw the lines around what’s acceptable when it comes to sex.
After all, sometimes what legally constitutes rape looks an awful lot like that which does not legally constitute rape — a painful, degrading sexual encounter during which the word “stop” was thought but not uttered. There is a difference between the two, which the law recognizes. Nevertheless, it is a more slippery slope than some imagine. And it is not difficult to imagine how someone with zero practice of self-control, addled with booze and drugs, and entrenched in the arrogance of celebrity, might easily slide down it.
According to the Times story, the mother of “Alice,” the 16-year-old whom Brand is alleged to have groomed and assaulted, on one occasion drove Alice to Brand’s house “to emphasize to him that this was a girl with loving parents.” Alice tells the Times: “My mum still feels like she failed me in some way in allowing this to happen, but [because Alice was of age] she had no recourse at all.”
There was once a phrase, seldom used now: “taking advantage.” People used it to describe an older man preying upon a younger, inexperienced woman, or upon a woman who’d had too much to drink, or upon a woman who was in love with him when he was interested only in using her for sex. A man who “took advantage” wasn’t necessarily a criminal, but he was certainly a cad.
In a healthy culture, cads incur social costs for their behavior. Public shaming pending full contrition — and, in previous generations, beatings carried out by women’s male relatives. A cad was taught a lesson for his own good and the good of others who would be disincentivized from acting similarly.
It’s true that Brand is being piled on by partisans and hypocrites. It may also be true that criminal allegations won’t meet the high legal standard of proof at trial. But consider that this is his best defense: that he’s not a rapist — just another rich, powerful man who used women as playthings and got away with it for years. He’s not a victim but a man in a mess of his own making.