{"id":640709,"date":"2026-04-30T14:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/640709\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T14:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:24:12","slug":"piers-morgan-says-he-was-surprised-by-inappropriately-tactile-russell-brand-during-widely-mocked-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/640709\/","title":{"rendered":"Piers Morgan says he was surprised by \u2018inappropriately tactile\u2019 Russell Brand during widely mocked interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Piers Morgan<\/a> has accused Russell Brand<\/a> of being \u201cinappropriately tactile\u201d during an interview on his YouTube show, Piers Morgan Uncensored<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Former comedian and actor Brand made a widely mocked appearance on the show in which he spent more than 90 seconds trying and failing to find a Bible passage<\/a> he had read in court.<\/p>\n

Brand, 50, will face trial later this year<\/a> over allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him by six women. He denies all the charges, which date from 1999 to 2009.<\/p>\n

Since the interview aired, Morgan has responded to a viewer who remarked on how Brand repeatedly placed his hand on the presenter\u2019s arm or shoulder. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll that touching was extremely condescending,\u201d the fan told Morgan on X, \u201cdid it bother you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit weird, yes,\u201d Morgan responded on 27 April. \u201cNever had a guest be so inappropriately tactile during an interview, which surprised me given the allegations against him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Independent has contacted Brand\u2019s lawyer for comment.<\/p>\n

\"PiersPiers Morgan interviewed Russell Brand on his YouTube show, \u2018Piers Morgan Uncensored\u2019 (YouTube)<\/p>\n

Elsewhere during the interview, Brand spoke about his prior relationship with a 16-year-old girl, saying that he now believes his actions, while legal, were \u201cmorally and spiritually wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, he admitted that he had an \u201cexploitative\u201d sexual relationship<\/a> with a 16-year-old when he was 30. The woman is not among those bringing charges against Brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow I feel about it, as I\u2019ve said, is that it\u2019s not nice to know that my actions have contributed to a person\u2019s suffering,\u201d he said on Piers Morgan Uncensored.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be, there must be, justice for that. The context in which those consensual encounters was happening was a sort of merry deluge of constant consensual activity that was very, very difficult to sometimes believe was happening, but one adjusts to those kind of conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say, Piers, on a personal level, that\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s morally and spiritually wrong, it\u2019s legal. It\u2019s not a legal issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brand\u2019s trial will take place at Southwark Crown Court on 12 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-640709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}