Former comedian and actor and current right-wing loon Russell Brand was sentenced today to 10 and a half years in prison on the one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was found guilty last week.
The rape charge stemmed from an incident in 2009 during which a woman went home with him and engaged in consensual, protected vaginal intercourse, after which he removed the condom and anally raped her, neither of which she consented to, left her bleeding on the bed and then told her to clean it up and get out.
The three sexual assault convictions included a 2004 episode in which Mr. Brand grabbed a woman’s breasts at a London bar within a minute of their meeting; a 2005 episode in which he pinned a woman against a wall at a radio station and groped her; and a 2009 episode in which Mr. Brand’s team told a woman who was working with him that he would continue only if she gave him a massage, after which he thrust his face into her lap.
The woman he groped in 2004, a former MTV employee, also alleged that he dragged her into the bar bathroom and forced his penis into her mouth, but he was found “not guilty” on that count.
The women reported the assaults following the release of a documentary about Brand in which several other women reported being assaulted by him. There are reportedly several other women who are currently lined up to report their own assaults.
At sentencing, the judge accused Brand of lying in court, of being “staggeringly arrogant” and of believing that “fame meant you could act how you liked, when you liked, unhindered by the rules by which decent people live.”
The women also spoke about how they had been affected in life by the assaults.
During Monday’s hearing, the woman in the 2004 episode appeared in court, concealed by a screen, and said that her encounter with the comedian had caused her to lose “any love for myself for a long time.” She added that “it was impossible to escape” Mr. Brand because of his media profile, and that she often saw him “being celebrated for his disgusting behavior against women like it was all a joke.”
The woman he was convicted of raping said in a statement read out to the court that before the episode she had aspired to pursue stand-up comedy, but afterward she “felt unable to continue, because the thought of encountering Russell Brand, or even hearing his name, caused me anxiety and fear.” She said she had turned to alcohol to block out her “feelings and memories” of the rape.
Naturally, Brand still says he either doesn’t remember the encounters (but that he’s never done anything to a woman without her consent) or that they were totally consensual. And the thing is, it is entirely possible that he believed that, at least some of the time, because he was that arrogant. He might well have assumed that a woman who wanted to meet him wanted to be groped by him, or assumed that a woman who had sex with him, or a “threesome” with him, wouldn’t mind some surprise anal sex without a condom. Perhaps he assumed no one would complain about him shoving his face into her crotch, because, hey! He was Russell Brand! He was on TV! He was a star!
And, you know, when you’re a star, they just let you do it.
Unsurprisingly, some of the worst people in the world are very upset that Brand was convicted and given such a long sentence. Among them is Megyn Kelly, who very seriously and solemnly described Brand’s first night in prison, which became a tad difficult right around the time she mentioned that the package he was given upon entry included Polos (British Lifesavers) and biscuits.
Now, as someone who cares quite a bit about bad prison conditions, and cares about them regardless of who it is that is suffering them, mints and biscuits have never been on my personal list of major complaints. I imagine they weren’t on Megyn Kelly’s either, and in fact I would guess that, were Brand not a right-wing celebrity — or, to be fair, literally any white, right-wing man accused of rape at this point — she would have been angry about the Polos and biscuits for far different reasons.
Also aggressively defending Brand has been everyone’s least favorite neckbearded defender-of-accused-rapists, Michael Tracey, who appears to believe that if a woman consents to both a threesome and vaginal sex with a man that he is then free to stick it in any hole he chooses, regardless of consent.
Sadly, this was not an entirely unique view over on Xitter, where far too many people appeared to be confounded by the idea that this is rape.
Would they also be okay with a woman busting out an enormous dildo and doing this to a man she was having normal consensual sex with? Just asking.
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Brand and his defenders have claimed that the sexual assault charges are less about him anally raping a woman than they are about punishing him for being a conservative. Kelly specifically claimed, in another video after he was found guilty, that she was “indignant that this obvious conservative stalwart has been targeted.” Except the thing is, Brand’s transition from a supporter of “egalitarian socialism” to the hard Christian Right appears to have, very conveniently, taken place right around the time when we started holding celebrities accountable for sexual assault. He started pivoting around 2020, during COVID, but he announced his full conversion in 2024, several months after he posted a video to social media announcing that the media would soon be coming out with some allegations against him. (They indeed did, the very next day.)
Brand would hardly be the first to indulge in a mutually beneficial relationship between a washed-up or scandal-ridden celebrity and the political Right. They get what they’re desperate for — a little bit of that celebrity shine that the Left so rudely hordes all to itself — and the celebrity gets all the continued support, money and adoration they need. Sometimes, if they’re not in prison, they even get to revive their acting careers in terrible right-wing propaganda movies.
Alas, Russell Brand will not get that chance for at least seven or so years, by which point there might not even be a Daily Wire for him to turn to.
Nota Bene: Russell Brand is a fucking monster and a shit human being, but prison rape jokes are also fucking horrible, so don’t even try it in the comments.
OT. Skepti isn't with us anymore. I don't know any other way to put it. Just got home and am navigating the next steps.
OT: CNN called CO4 for Laubacher over Boebert though AP has not made the call.