Following an 18-month investigation, British authorities have charged Russell Brand with rape and sexual assault.
According to the Associated Press, the 50-year-old comedian faces one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, another count of rape, and two counts of sexual assault. London’s Metropolitan Police launched their investigation after four women came forward with allegations against Brand. They claim he assaulted them in Bournemouth and London between 1999 and 2005.
Brand addressed the charges in a video posted on X.
“Thank you for these incredible and overwhelming messages of support,” he began in the clip, which you can see below. “We’re very fortunate, in a way, to live in a time where there’s so little trust in the British government. We’re very fortunate, I suppose, that this is happening at a time where we know that the law has become a kind of weapon to be used against people, institutions, and sometimes entire nations that will not accept and tolerate levels of corruption that are unprecedented.”
He then asked viewers, particularly those in the UK, how they feel about the current state of law. “When I was young and single… I was a fool, man, I was a fool before I lived in the light of the lord,” he continued. “I was a drug addict, a sex addict, and an imbecile. But what I never was, was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity, I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.” He wrapped up the video by promoting an upcoming Rumble stream and expressed that he’s “incredibly grateful” to have the opportunity to defend himself against these charges in court.
The investigation started when Channel 4 and the Sunday Times published these allegations. The women making the claims haven’t been identified publicly, and the investigation continues. Brand denied the accusations when they first surfaced, insisting the encounters were consensual. He’s scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London next month to face these charges.
“We have today authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Russell Brand with a number of sexual offences,” stated Crown Prosecution Service Chief Crown Prosecutor Jaswant Narwal. “We carefully reviewed the evidence after a police investigation into allegations made following the broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary in September 2023. We have concluded that Russell Brand should be charged with offences including rape, sexual assault and indecent assault.”
Brand, once a comedy superstar, has largely disappeared from mainstream media in recent years. He became known for his political and cultural activism throughout the 2010s, but his YouTube content shifted dramatically around the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, he’s been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories.
According to The Independent’s reporting last year, Brand began marketing an amulet that he claimed would protect his followers from being “corrupted” by “lethal signals.”
