{"id":668087,"date":"2026-10-28T19:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T19:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668087\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T19:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T19:20:10","slug":"russell-brand-says-friends-abandoned-him-after-sex-crime-allegations-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/668087\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell Brand says friends abandoned him after sex crime allegations \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">British comedian and actor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/russell-brand\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/russell-brand\/\">Russell Brand<\/a> \u200csaid on Wednesday that friends and colleagues turned against him after allegations of sex crimes were made against him, before telling a jury in a London court \u200bthat consent was fundamental.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brand, once a regular figure on British television and star of a number of Hollywood movies, is on trial accused of three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and an attempted indecent assault involving six women between 1999 and 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> Brand (51) denies \u200ball the allegations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Appearing in the witness box in the third week of his trial at London\u2019s Southwark Crown Court, Brand said \u201cno\u201d loudly and clearly when his lawyer \u2060asked him if he had committed any of the alleged crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The jury has previously been told how all the \u200ccomplainants came \u200cforward \u200bto detectives after a documentary was broadcast in 2023 along with a number of newspaper articles in which anonymous allegations were made by other women who are not involved in the trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brand said the impact had been \u201cdevastating\u201d as friends \u200bturned their backs on him and not a single person would give evidence on his behalf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Asked by his lawyer Ian Winter if \u200cthey would \u201ctouch you with a bargepole\u201d, he replied: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As Brand described how his public image had grown over time, he said his marriage with US singer Katy Perry \u2060in 2010 had brought him \u201cstaggering fame\u201d. The couple \u2060split up 14 months later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Prosecutors, \u200bwho completed their case against him earlier on Wednesday, have described Brand as a sexual predator.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">They said Brand raped a woman after meeting her at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in 1999, forced a woman to give him oral sex in toilets at a London bar in 2004, and had molested another woman at a radio station in 2004 or 2005.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He is also accused of trying to pull a woman into the male toilets at MTV Europe, in London, where she was working in 2001, and that in 2009 he anally raped a \u200cwoman who had agreed to consensual \u2060sex at his home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The final allegation is that he assaulted a woman who was working at the Channel 4 TV station where they were involved in a recording project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Describing the impact of the allegations against him, \u200cBrand said that he had been barred from the hospital where his son was receiving open heart surgery after the documentary was broadcast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cMy entire life has been consumed \u200bby these events, these allegations, these accusations, the impact of these allegations and accusations,\u201d he \u200bsaid. \u201cI have devoted myself to these matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brand said the first complainant had willingly had sex with him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cConsent is fundamental, essential, necessary and indeed more important than sex itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The trial continues. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British comedian and actor Russell Brand \u200csaid on Wednesday that friends and colleagues turned against him after allegations&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,109394],"class_list":["post-668087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-russell-brand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}