Russell Brand is going to prison for 10 and a half years. A judge at Southwark Crown Court in London sentenced the comedian and actor on Monday for one rape and three sexual assaults against four women between 2004 and 2009, RTE News reported. He’ll be on the sex offenders’ register for life.
Mr. Justice Joel Bennathan didn’t soften it. “You had also become a sexual predator,” he told Brand. Of one of the assaults, he said: “It was outrageous and laddish, but it was also a criminal offence, and as it happens you haven’t got away with it.” He also said Brand’s fame had protected him until journalists exposed the allegations in 2023.
What was Russell Brand convicted of?
A jury convicted Brand, 51, last week. The rape conviction involves a 21-year-old fan he took back to his home in Hampstead, London, after a show at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009. The sexual assaults involved an MTV worker at a bar in Soho in 2004, a Capital Radio worker in a corridor in 2005, and a Channel 4 worker during a recording session in 2009.
“I felt that if I reported him, I would not be believed,” the woman he raped said in her statement. Another victim said, “I just hope that he is not allowed to hurt any more women.” Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said the outcome shows “fame, status and the passage of time do not change the fundamental issue of consent.” Brand had denied all of it. He showed no emotion in the dock, RTE reported.
When could Russell Brand get out of prison?
He’s expected to serve two-thirds of the sentence before release on license, so about seven years. Entertainment Tonight reported he’s been living in Florida and would be monitored by an ankle tag for the rest of his sentence once he’s out. Whether he could ever come back to the U.S. with a rape conviction is a real question.
Over the past few years Brand rebuilt himself as an online voice for American conservative audiences, including on stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, and many of those fans treated the case against him as a smear. Plenty of famous men have counted on that kind of loyalty. We’ve written about how it played out when Trump put Mike Tyson on stage at a rally, and about a case that went the other way, when the woman who accused Jay-Z said it never happened.
The BeezLoop Take
Brand denied everything, and a big online following took his side. Then four women testified, a jury heard the evidence, and he was convicted. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and his fans owe those women the same hearing they demanded for him.
The judge’s point about fame cuts both ways. Brand’s status kept these women quiet for nearly 20 years. Then his new audience in the U.S. treated the charges as proof he was telling the truth. Neither one had anything to do with what actually happened.
The open question: will the American audiences and platforms that embraced Brand say anything now that a jury has spoken, or just move on?
Sources: RTE News / PA · NBC News (video) · Entertainment Tonight (video)
