So it is Russell Brand

[Gro]

The biggest news story of the year is about someone who has already written books about all the stuff he has done. I will be surprised if Dispatched can say one thing I didn't already know.

@Mumof118 how would you feel if you were raped, multiple women had experienced similar, people around the rapist knew they had a predatory attitude towards women, and yet people still defended him?

It's ok for people to blindly believe the accusors. It's RIGHT that they do. If he can prove himself innocent, or the police find nothing to answer, that's fine.

The fact that you will side with someone where multiple, seperate, people have accused him of rape, is worrying. I just hope you never find yourself in their position.

I am a long term MN poster who follows RB. I'm on his email subscription list, I saw him live last year. I think he has important perspectives on power in our world and helped me understand the weirdness in the wake of COVID.

The accusations are serious, and upsetting to read.

I believe there is a media and maybe political cabal out to shut him down.

On the face of the Sunday Times report there is a pile of evidence but also what I think to be quite convincing testimonials that lead me to favour the victims.

The article also says the reporters were on the trail of the story for three years (taking us back to 2020). They give the impression they left no stone unturned, no potential witness un-interviewed. This has the very real feel of the media wanting to truss RB up like a chicken.

All of these things can be true: RB can be a nasty rapist, he can be a reformed forty something family man, he can be subject to a concerted mission to be shut down by the powers that be.

I feel awful for his victims and also his pregnant wife Laura who must be going through a horrible time.

I'm sad to hear about this side to RB. I really believed he was a bringer of change and that his honest battles in his own life revealed a character that was sweet and kind at heart. I have to reappraise. I'm finding the news hard to adjust to. I hope if the evidence stacks up then it'll go to court and he'll face a real trial.

Please can people recognise the difference between a TV 'show' and a journalistic documentary

No such thing as a “journalistic documentary”. Only documentaries - which may or may not provide a truthful/objective depiction of events.

All the information about the reports to the police (which were never acted upon,)were only made public after his death.

ETA: Brand apparently had a lot of lawyers acting to protect him? So he may not be as powerful as JS, but he has/had more power than his victims. But presumably some of this will be made clearer in the documentary.

Edit: attempted to share screenshots of the article but they're coming out blurry

@BlooDeBloop

Surely “quite convincing testimonials” are only convincing to the extent that they chime with existing concrete evidence. On its own it is just a claim. We will see what concrete evidence Dispatches provides.

Oh my god do you have no idea how journalism works? Would you like them to make no money? To be all state owned? (Hello North Korea). How would you like it to work so we have a functioning free press that can hold people to account?

That's incorrect

Because a documentary such as the one tonight will be well supported by legally-tested evidence, as already mentioned

WRONG!

he can be subject to a concerted mission to be shut down by the powers that be.

This viewpoint doesn't make sense. If the "powers that be" suddenly decided he must be silenced, there are effective ways of doing so. This hasn't stopped him talking or making videos and it's very unlikely it ever would. If a trial was to happen, it wouldn't be for ages, he's not going to be imprisoned or have his laptop taken away in the meantime...

This won't stop him pushing out content, it won't stop his supporters consuming it (indeed it just makes them support him more).

I just wish people would stop and think before blindly defending him and those like him.

We are getting drawn into a Covid argument on this thread because Brand himself chose to attack and question the motives of the investigative teams rather than the content of the allegations. His supporters are doing the same. It's straight out of the Trump playbook.

To be fair, RB has only had 8 days to reply to the evidence. He has supporters like Andrew Tate, Elon Musk and Laurence Fox on his side - all known for their cogent, balanced, rational and diffident views.

@beatrix1234

hes not powerful in the scheme of things, but it must be very frustrating indeed for the legacy media seeing one man band people like him gaining a million followers every year, while their historic brands are mostly sinking, and relying on celeb stories like this to stay afloat.

Add to the matter that probably the Main Theme of his YT channel is him actively trying to turn people away from the “lying mainstream media” and, well, it’s an interesting turn of events.

Yes I feel very similar. I believe the victims. I've seen him live too and I liked him, I found him really funny for a long time, I read his book. I agree with a lot of his opinions (well maybe not so much recently) and I've always thought he means well. It's hard to realise the person who you've watched and in some ways admired, isn't a good person. I do think it's odd how apparently he was untouchable- why? But now he isn't. I find it odd how the girl, Alice, ended up working at Channel 4. That doesn't mean I don't believe her - but there are layers and layers of stuff we don't know even when it comes to these exposés - they only expose what they want to expose.

Exactly

More to it than "just" rape and coercive behaviour?

@Stoic123

Elon Musk has achieved more in his lifetime than the current occupants of the House of Commons combined. Being able to see through bullshit is one of his many talents.

Yup @Stoic123 and Brand (for some reason) decided to bring COVID into it via mentioning ivermectin* and Joe Rogan in his rather bizzare video

*ivermectin is a drug that was hoped would be effective against COVID. Sadly, RCTs found it not to be. It has been jumped on and heavily politicised by large anti-vaccine groups and those supporting them including Joe Rogan, another of his defenders.

@IClaudine All the information about the reports to the police (which were never acted upon,)were only made public after his death.

I know, he was the most profiling sexual abuser of all times (and this was said by the police!), his rap sheet was a very long one and it only came out when he died. Is this the case with RB? I don’t know, I lack a lot of information, I only know what Murdoch & cronies want me to believe.

All the looneys have arrived!

Or the flip side is he knew what he did how ever many years ago was bad. So decided to actively pursue a YouTube right wing persona , get a following who treated him like a cult leader and keep hammering home don't trust the main stream media /the deep state and when his crimes do come to the surface, he's got a million people who automatically belive 'they're' out to get him and he can't possibly be the man he's being accused of. I mean it worked for trump so he seen it in action.

The contrarian whataboutery on this thread is making me feel sick. I suffered a pretty violent rape and the bastard is locked up thankfully, yet I consider myself one of the 'lucky' ones because he was convicted. I feel heartfelt sorry for all those women that don't get the justice I did, but you can see from the many posters on this thread - and the statistics on rape conviction - why women are too scared to report to the police. There's a shameful amount of mental gymnastics on display here and very little concern about his potential victims. Just because you want to stick-it to the mainstream media. Pathetic.

I imagine the legal teams at channel 4 and The Times have looked at this quite thoroughly before it was published.

And yes they’ve seen texts where he says “sorry” for rape and that victim went to a rape crisis centre where a police report was noted and where the victim has a record of counselling.

The times article interviews a few women who worked with him who also talked about the atmosphere which basically seemed to imply expect sexual harassment.

Interesting to note that Fox's attitude to the Huw Edwards scandal- which involved no criminal behaviour as far as we know to date, was very different to his take on Brand.

x.com/scousepie/status/1679489998205362176?s=20

The clever ploy for any rapist and/or abuser in this day and age is to start bashing ‘cancel culture’ and the main stream media. Then, when the allegations come out, they’ve already cultivated an army of defenders who will happily believe that it’s all some sinister plot.