Brand, 51, who is also a former Hollywood actor and was married to pop star Katy Perry, denies seven charges of rape and sexual assault involving six women from 1999 to 2009 and has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
The woman, who was the first to give evidence, has not been identified. She said she had chatted with Brand at his show, and then suggested they continue discussing a possible theatre project in her hotel room.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe manipulated me, he disarmed me into thinking I was safe around him,\u201d she said in court, alleging Brand then became \u201cmonster-like\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I was sexually safe. I thought he was a gay man … that is my error in judgement and I regret that to this day,\u201d the woman added.<\/p>\n
At the hotel, she returned from the toilet and saw Brand had stripped to tight underpants, she said, telling the court that \u201cat that point I was terrified, I had nowhere to run\u201d.<\/p>\n
She denied Brand\u2019s lawyer\u2019s suggestion he had persuaded her to have sex, saying: \u201cHe did not persuade me, he seemed menacing at that point to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jury was earlier shown the video of a 2023 police interview where the woman said Brand pushed her onto the hotel bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do remember saying \u2018no, what are you doing?\u2019\u201d, she told police.<\/p>\n
Asked in court by the prosecution how Brand responded to her, she said: \u201cHe didn\u2019t, he just carried on.\u201d<\/p>\n
She estimated in court that at the time she weighed 6.5 or 7 stone (41kg to 44kg) while Brand was \u201creally heavy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was feeling I can\u2019t breathe – claustrophobic – he\u2019s on top of me, I\u2019m hurting,\u201d she said. \u201cI did not consent, I did not find him attractive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brand\u2019s trial began on Monday amid a storm of media attention and in their opening statement on Wednesday, the prosecution accused him of being a \u201csexual predator\u201d who was \u201cruthless\u201d and \u201cmanipulative\u201d.<\/p>\n
The jury at London\u2019s Southwark Court will hear testimony from the six women making allegations dating between 1999 and 2009 when Brand was rising to fame.<\/p>\n
Brand, who has repackaged himself as a faith-based online commentator and guru, listened to the first woman\u2019s evidence in his glass-walled dock.<\/p>\n
She told police she came forward after watching a 2023 British television documentary featuring separate allegations of sexual misconduct against the former comedian.<\/p>\n
Judge Joel Bennathan told the jury all six women in the case went to the police after seeing this documentary, but cautioned it presented the allegations in a \u201cone-sided\u201d way.<\/p>\n
The woman said in court she had not reported the alleged rape at the time \u201cbecause I didn\u2019t want anyone to know at that point\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was ashamed. I felt nobody would believe me\u201d<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brand, 51, who is also a former Hollywood actor and was married to pop star Katy Perry, denies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7818,155261,6743,9218,4463,14801,40367,1349,9060,156,6735,14909,309641,130,111,139,69,184409,51246,16784,11763,6642,36653,131,28050,6859,1354],"class_list":["post-631679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-allegedly","tag-attacking","tag-became","tag-before","tag-brand","tag-british","tag-comedian","tag-court","tag-decades","tag-entertainment","tag-hotel","tag-me","tag-monsterlike","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-raped","tag-raping","tag-room","tag-russell","tag-tells","tag-terrified","tag-than","tag-thursday","tag-told","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}