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Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual acts.
No British celebrity has navigated the cultural shifts of the early 21st century better than Russell Brand.
His career has been a long process of reformulating his own image.
He transformed himself from provocative stand-up comedian to television star and Hollywood actor. He became a YouTuber and political activist, embracing left-wing issues related to inequality in the 2010s; later, he began to defend conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and, in 2024, expressed support for Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States. In the same year, he was baptized as a Christian in the waters of the River Thames, in London.
Now, he has a new role to assume: that of a convicted rapist.
This Thursday (5/11), the comedian - whose reputation was ruined - was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault at Southwark Crown Court, at the end of a three-week trial.
Faced with the possibility of a prison sentence, it is clear that the behavior that served as the backdrop for the case against Brand is the same that initially contributed to his rise.
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Brand became famous as a sexually scandalous libertine whose daring humor fascinated audiences.
He cultivated the image of an insatiable and shameless womanizer. Sex, drugs and excess were central elements of his comic repertoire.
Throughout the decade in which he starred in these controversial episodes, Brand filled concert halls and theaters with his stand-up shows, while broadcasters — including MTV, Channel 4 and the BBC — competed for his presence, offering him huge sums.
With his hair spiked and tight black jeans, Brand entertained the audience in his performances by recounting, in explicit detail, his sexual adventures: anal sex, prostitutes and orgies.
He simulated masturbation and sexual acts on stage. He even said that he liked oral sex with women — even describing how the act would cause their makeup, specifically their mascara, to end up smudging — and he acted out all of this in front of the audience.
Even Brand's defense attorney called the humor "a product of its time," reminding the jury that in that period, this type of sexually explicit comedy was seen as "radical and different."
Only later would many see this as misogyny disguised as humor. But those were different times.
An era that celebrated casual sexism
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The late 1990s and early 2000s in Britain were a period that celebrated casual sexism and often celebrated celebrities who propagated it.
In 1999, FHM magazine projected a nude photo of Scottish TV presenter Gail Porter onto the facade of the British Parliament. She only found out about what happened when she saw the news on television and later reported how the episode profoundly affected her mental health.
What today might be classified as toxic masculinity was often considered funny—seen by some as typical, old-fashioned "male humor." For others, it was acceptable, as they believed it was all irony.
"There's no doubt he was a very talented comedian," says Sarah Ditum, author of Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties. "There was, at the time, a desire to break taboos."
"Looking back, it all seems extremely dated. It has aged very poorly, and I doubt many people would want to defend Brand's repertoire now, knowing that it reflected his real-life behavior rather than a tongue-in-cheek performance."
But at the time there were already signs that his extravagant behavior on stage did not end when the show ended — which was most evident in his 2007 autobiography, My Booky Wook, a best-seller.
"I'm a guy with a good job and a fantastic haircut, who won a 'golden ticket' — like Willy Wonka's — to a delicious sex factory, all because of my fame."
Of course, many of his sexual partners gave him consent. As his lawyer told the jury, "he dedicated himself, for many years, to a highly promiscuous life," reminding jurors that "having a lot of sex is completely lawful."
My Booky Wook, which topped the Sunday Times bestseller list for seven weeks in 2007 and sold 600,000 copies in hardcover in the UK, begins with an account of his admission to a clinic for treatment of sex addiction.
In the book, he describes going to lap dancing clubs, frequently performing oral sex in bathrooms and participating in many threesome sexual encounters.
Fame and success brought him girls
"The rules change when you're famous. In this case, two is often better than none or just one."
He writes about how an MTV publicist "reminded me that I put sexy dancing and prostitutes on her credit card account — a 'gold' card — and convinced the hotel to give me cash, all without her knowing."
The Observer newspaper described the work as "a scandalous and libidinous memoir, better written and entertaining than so many of the other celebrity autobiographies that clutter the shelves."
Heat magazine commented, "When you finish the book, you feel like you really know—and like—the real Russell."
It's hard to imagine a celebrity today writing a memoir in which he claims that, in performing arts school, a famous actress — who he goes so far as to name — "kissed me once in a hallway" and that for years he told people, "I had sex with her, and when I say had sex, I mean I had anal sex."
But it's all told in a playful and revealing way, by "a guy from Essex who likes women with big bums and full breasts."
Credit, Don Arnold/WireImage
In the face of their abusive conduct, texts that were previously celebrated for their frankness, honesty — and for being very funny — now reveal a completely different nature.
People "tend to confuse irony and self-awareness with sincerity and trustworthiness," says Ditum. "The idea behind the jokes he made, portraying himself as some kind of 'sex monster,' was to convince the audience that, in real life, he was not, in fact, a sex monster."
Has the normalization of his behavior allowed him to hide in plain sight? Could the media companies that welcomed him, the comedy venues that promoted him and the audiences that laughed at his humor have been, in some way, complicit?
A former television executive, who declined to be named, explained his peers' logic this way: "You have a charismatic host who appears to be extremely talented—and you don't want to lose that."
"Women who were being abused didn't feel encouraged to report it; and if any of them did, they were quickly labeled as 'problematic'. In practice, they weren't taken seriously, because no one wanted to lose their star. That was the mechanism."
In fact, in the case involving Brand, one of the complainants told the court that she did not report what happened because she believed she would not be taken seriously, given the "cultural climate of the time, marked by a macho mentality and male camaraderie." "It was my word against his," she said.
'The brand has been enabled'
Jo Caulfield, Brand's contemporary on the stand-up circuit in the early 2000s, says that she initially found him "extremely charming", but notes that he was "covered up" and that "no one dares say anything about it".
"People have people around them — promoters, TV assistants. It's a matter of hierarchy in television. If a junior production assistant goes into his dressing room and he pulls out his penis, the reaction is something like, 'Oh come on, don't make a fuss'."
And while safety and security standards have become much more stringent in certain sectors of the entertainment world, she says "this still happens."
"No one wants to upset the star. This person generates money, so for those lower in the hierarchical chain, it is better to remain silent in the face of any bad behavior," says Caulfield.
At the end of My Booky Wook, Brand writes, "I've done terrible things throughout this book... I mean, throughout my life."
Now, we understand exactly how terrible they were.
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