https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russell-brand-rape-sexual-assault-abuse-allegations-investigation-v5hxdlmb6
Four women, including one who was just 16, make allegations after an investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches
The idea that Elon Musk and Andrew Tate think that publically backing him helps quash any suggestion of bad actions is laughable.
These pieces of garbage all stick together.
Not enough scientists involved, he can't get it up he has to spew in a cup to get the job done.
"If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light."
So business as usual for this guy
That's not surprising either. This stuff usually only ever comes to light, when the talent is no longer profitable.
Lawl my partner and I were talking about a WEEK ago, saying we were surprised and happy that he’s apparently not raped anyone, or at least no allegations have come up.
This article is extremely relevant to that convo bahahaha
Once upon a time I actually liked Russell Brand. Thought he was intelligent and quite in touch with the ways of the world despite his eccentric character. He truly lost the plot when covid came around, although it wasn't the first time he'd talked absolute shite.
In hindsight, it's not really a surprise that he'd be this kind of person.
Yeah, I know a lot of people thought he was a reasonably smart dude with some interesting insights. But when you think about it he’s always been very superficial. There’s not much depth to any of his takes. He’s just charismatic and speaks like he keeps a pocket thesaurus in his jacket.
He a junkie you would see rambling at a bus stop incoherently. The difference is an expanded vocabulary and a he's been on TV.
He was funny at one point. But he never grew past the need for the attention and didn't branch out of teenager years.
When I was poor and I complained about inequality they said I was bitter. Now I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm starting to think they just don't want to talk about inequality. —Russell Brand
Still one of my favorite quotes, it’s unfortunate that I won’t really be able to use it any more.
Brand used to be a legit socialist back in the day. The longer he had money, the harder I think was for him to continue to understand the struggle of the common people. Either that or its audience capture like what happened to Dave Rueben.
The YouTube channel the Kavernacle has done some good coverage on his drift to the right.
He definitely didn't come up with that line, I'm sure you could find an attribution to something virtually identical said a century ago, and several times since.
I just watched a program about this, and he was a creep from the get go.
A guy vaguely understanding class struggles doesn't make him a socialist nor a good guy.
I’m pretty sure he described himself as a socialist once upon a time. I’m not one to gate keep what people call themselves.
But yeah just because he’s a socialist that doesn’t make him a good person. Marx probably had an unclaimed child with his servant girl.
Marx was an utter piece of shit in many ways. He just had some very good ideas. I've always wondered how many of them can be attributed to Engles though.
Hitler called himself a socialist too, that's a pretty low bar.. 🤦♀️
All you've done so far is attempt to derail the conversation about Brand being a rapist..
I’m sorry that’s not my intention. Do you think it would be best if we delete this thread?
I was just working through how my perception of him had changed over the years. I don’t want to downplay his alleged crimes.
I appreciate that you didn't mean to, but making it about him and whatever good he supposedly did, in a conversation about the several women he raped (and however many more he "just" assaulted), is at best highly inappropriate (and at worst is a well known derailing tactic used by those looking to defend a rapist and/or discredit his victims). Deleting the thread probably won't do much, but learning from this for the future will.
Part of rape culture is the massively false idea that "nice guys" don't rape, ignoring the fact that many rapists and abusers are experts at manipulating everyone around them (rapists "infiltrating" leftist circles, especially feminist ones, to gain access to victims, as well as the language to disarm their defences, is sadly not at all unusual).
I would highly recommend watching the Dispatches episode that aired about this last night if you can. In several of his performances/appearances he basically admits to putting an act on to get people to ignore how shitty he really is (as well as graphic descriptions of what we now know were some of his assaults, which he used as part of his comedy routine).
He used to eloquently talk about more straightforward issues to do with class struggle. The problem is when he decides to take that approach to science but then found himself going against it, and doubling down.
It's basically how a lot of commentators get into a bizarre rabbit hole and come out with some wild ideas. It's a basic trap that many of them fall for.
But that said he's always had a reputation for being a "playboy", so this isn't really a surprise. Lots of dudes from back when he was on top have turned out to be really shitty.
This is shit he was doing more than ten years ago.
You can't blame this shit on lockdown, he's always been a failure of a human being, it's just now we're finding out details.
I never liked him much, and that's not a "I knew he was out there raping", that I didn't know. But personality-wise he was basically an egocentric rockstar who thought he knew it all and everyone not agreeing with his views and sense of humour were just too stupid.
And turns out, he is behaving even more like a 80s rockstar than I thought.
Perfectly cast in Get Him to the Greek, but at the time I thought it was acting, not just rolling out of bed.
Yeah I always thought he was hilarious because he was doing a shtick but as it turns out, that's just him.
Yeah, it's also why his movie career (at least as a comic lead) started in 2008 and was dead by the middle of 2011. He's got no range and audiences were only willing to pay to see Russell Brand being "Russell Brand in a different outfit" so many times before he wore out his welcome.
He lost the plot well before Covid, it's just that it wasn't noticed outside the UK as it largely revolved around our election in 2015 when he was encouraging people not to vote, then when he realised at the last minute this would just lead to he Tories winning by default, backed labour at the eleventh hour, leaving a lot of his followers confused and aimless so the alt-right could swoop in and win them over.
I noticed that people who are using recreational drugs are disproportionally concerned about vaccine safety, which I find quite amusing.
I think you'd find higher rates among Christian Conservatives and they're a pretty anti-drug group.
I never said that's the only group though.
It is just surprising to me that you would get concerns about injecting yourself with not well tested medicine from that specific group.
I find it entirely unsurprising.
The amount of vegan, organic, health-obsessed, non-GMO twats I know, who happily snort coke or do ecstacy during the weekend is huge.
I can only surmise they're not true believers, they're just boring people who think going on about it makes them more interesting than they actually are.
It's just that out of the various things about Russell Brand, the recreational drug user is going to be one of the lesser reasons why he went into anti-vaxx territory.
Not that he's a Christian Conservative but he's adopted a parallel to their ways of regarding medical science, where it's a lot of sealioning questions, little actual medical journal research, and all the confidence of a SAHM Facebook mom who gets all her information from Facebook.
Yeah I've seen this as well, all the drug users I know went hard on the conspiracy train.
I liked his old podcasts back when he was still on drugs but pretending he was clean.
I'm just waiting for the study that shows COVID infection makes certain people less empathetic and more paranoid. There's just too much of it happening to not be biological IMO.
She was 16, so yeah, he's right: he was banging a child.
Even if he isn't convicted of the others (one was treated at a clinic after the assault) dating a 16 year old when you're 30 is gonna get you some time.
Assuming this is all true (I do believe them, but it's up to judge/jury to decide) but he somehow manages to get out of this, his reputation is in the toilet
It's creepy and abusive as fuck so I don't say this out of any great desire to defend him, but that girl is of legal age in the UK, so by our standards he isn't a nonce, legally speaking.
Ya’ll motherfuckers need Romeo and Juliet laws. Age of consent at 14-16 isn’t a horrid idea, but slap a “within 5 years of the age of the oldest companion” and you fix Richard Brand grooming a fucking child.
He's not technically a child rapist and he can go someplace that's not technically under the jail
16 is above the age of consent in the UK as far as I know, so the issue wouldn't be the dating of a sixteen year old, it'd be the apparent rampant rapes and assaults regardless of age.
Not to dog on the UK but maybe they should raise that a little, it's incredibly easy for an adult to take advantage of a 16 year old, not even just sexually.
I think it's actually the USA who has an unusually high age of consent. Most of us have an age of consent of 16 and a drinking age of 18.
I don't exactly think we should raise it, but I sure wouldn't be against a Romeo and Juliet style amendment. I remember dating an 18 year old when I was 21, and that felt like a big gap. I can't begin to imagine 16 to 30+. Though that wouldn't be illegal here either^*.
* We have exceptions if the older person is in a position of trust like a teacher, coach etc. Then it's illegal.
Yeah, I'm American and we tend to think the world and laws revolve around us. My bad! (Still 16 and 30 tho...)
Yeah - if your defence is "well it's not illegal, soooooo..." it's a pretty safe bet you're being a piece of shit.
There's no defence here, just correcting someone who seems to be defaulting to the USA law
I literally said brand is a cunt in my comment, what more do you want me to say? That he's a total cunt? He's still a rapist regardless if this is all true.
Yeah - not disagreeing, my dude - just pointing out that even the defence he's fronted is dogshit.
The thing is, if this happens 4 times, most likely there are more who might speak up. The thing with these victims, in many cases, they think they are the only one. Knowing there might be others, would increase the chances of them to go public with their experience which might be even worse.
I swear there's a dark triad for "free thinkers" like him.
He used to be good but like many they started doubling down on their beliefs during the pandemic and quite frankly they become mentally unwell.
I'm seriously more surprised these days when i read something like: leonardo DiCaprio never raped anyone.
There was a Dispatches program on about this tonight, and at some point they note that later in his career Brand would do charity work exclusively to benefit women, and Kutcher was my first thought.
Not saying he's done anything, but so often men claim to be feminists as a smoke screen to hide abusive behaviour ("he would never, look at all the good he's done!") and/or access victims.
You know we have a real problem in our society when these women haven't been able to come forward with these allegations until the press have contacted them.
If they fear coming forward after being assaulted by someone who is hardly discreet about being a sexual predator, what must it be like for the victims of more outwardly respectable public figures?
Can we make a list of right wingers that aren't disgusting pieces of shit? Will be much quicker.
Funnily enough he used to be pretty left.
It's like this right wing conspiracy pipeline is a honeypot for pond scum that reveals who they really are.
Populist rhetoric works because it offers seemingly simple solutions to complex problems and excuses behavior that would otherwise be unacceptable.
Sometimes it's even a good excuse, others just an outlet for hate and stress.
He always struck me as one of those people who wasn't, in his heart of hearts, actually left-wing, but rather just wanted to be counter-cultural. The culture has shifted around him and now if he wants to be counter-cultural it means being alt-right.
pretty left or just far-right?
the swiss LEGA also agrees with a lot of the far-left on how to deal with social Problems, but is still far-right.
I think he used to say he was, not sure if he does anymore.
His content mostly caputred the right wing conspiracy don't trust the gubbement, aliens are real, covid is not real but also a bioweapon crowd.
Never did like that guy. He seemed like a creep from the start, and I didn't ever find him funny.
I've never met a person irl who didn't think this guy was unfunny and a super creep. I could never figure out why he was famous cause I've never met a person who was even kinda a fan of his
He was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which is a pretty well-regarded movie. He probably gets a fair amount of residual respect just from proximity to that.
That movie and get him to the Greek are basically the only high profile things I've seen him in.
Assume everyone in Hollywood has dirty on each other. If they don't, they get real cancelled because they're uncontrollable.
Completely and utterly damning. He's a rapist. I hope an investigation and conviction follows this reporting. Also maybe now's the time to codify that 16 year olds shouldn't be fair game for 30 year old men.
"He's a rapist."
If I wrote an article about you with an accusation of rape, would that also make you a rapist? Is that the standard of proof required?
It depends, does your article reference a verified report from a rape crisis centre and a text apologising for the rape from the rapist?
The only problem with this reporting is the fact this reporting was necessary for anything to be done about it.
With several accusations of rape, from different people describing very similar circumstances, echoing his 'comedy', with one receiving apologies from a man who heard her screaming as the assault was occurring and was too afraid to intervene.
Your knee-jerk apologism for this slimy predator reflects very badly on you. You can't even be bothered to research the accusations you're dismissing. Take a good look at yourself, it is not too late to change.
What an absolute asshole monster
That Times article should come with a trigger warning, it contains descriptions of the assaults.
He's a link that bypasses the paywall https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.co.uk%2Farticle%2Frussell-brand-rape-sexual-assault-abuse-allegations-investigation-v5hxdlmb6
That site never worked for me. Use this Chrome plugin
https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean
Or for Firefox, here
https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean
None of these have worked for me, they all stop at
One woman alleges that Brand raped her against a wall in his Los Angeles home. She was treated at a rape crisis centre on the same day,
archive.ph doesn't even load.
When he came out getting super loud and obnoxious on political takes I figured he was the type. No surprise at all...
Didn't he non-consensually post candid pics of Katy Perry without makeup? I thought he was an asshole ever since then. Not that she should've been ashamed, but it should've been her choice.
I don't know the non-consensual bit for sure, but that's how I recall it being presented at the time and why I've never liked him. I'd never heard of the fucker before that.
I hadn't heard that until now but if he did that without her permission that's a shitty thing to do to a partner. Whether you're a celebrity or not there's a certain expectation of privacy that needs to be established in intimate relationships.
I too would also be against the government if the government was preparing a case against me for several counts of rape.
Fuck Brand. Hope he fucking rots in prison.
From argent leftie to all of a sudden rightwing conspiracy theorist
That's because things are in a circle. Go too far left and you end up on the right... All the wacko-commies are essentially fascists.
