How did Jonathan Ross come back from the Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs thing?

[Bandsis]

Quite apart from Russell Brand hiding in plain sight, how did Jonathan Ross ever work again?

I was thinking that the other day.

@AtIusvue the BBC is a much larger beast - it has more channels and radio services as well.

Mine was the same, 80s North East comp.

We did do woodwork and metal work, but only a term of each! And much more cookery.

Yes, indeed.

Also, neither Sachs nor his wife were above reproach here. They treated their granddaughter appallingly. She was an innocent party: a young woman struggling with addiction who made some poor choices and needed the support of her family, not public censure. They excoriated her in the media and cut her out of their lives and she was devastated. That, I think, was the real measure of the harm Ross and Brand did. Her mother at least stood by her.

As to the upthread accusations to a PP of ‘dick pandering’, Ross is puerile and has a distinctly nasty streak and this I’m not disputing. That still doesn’t put him in the same category as a predatory, violent rapist.

This should say and Russell Brand.
Jonathan Ross has not been found guilty of abuse but I still think him odious and the BBC should have thought so too years ago.

Didn't Ross begin his relationship with Jane Goldman while she was still only a teenager .

I dont think JR is ever going to be fully rehabilitated in media terms. The incident with RB is always going to come back up. Traitors is probably as good as it is going to get for him.

Totally agree, and him idolising his wife is absolutely not evidence he isn't misogynistic. If anything it lends support to it: many misogynistic men have a Madonna-whore complex. Choose a teenage virgin, put them on the pedestal then all other women are fair game if not for yourself, but to laugh along or shrug it off when men target them.

Link to article about Joanna Lumley and Stephen Barlow. Seems she knew of him as a teenager via a family she was friends with but didn’t actually meet him until he was in his twenties, and they didn’t get together for some time after that.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/how-we-met-joanna-lumley-and-stephen-barlow-1610102.html

Has he though, or have ITV just kept a better handle on his nastiness?

Admittedly I could never stand the man, but I'll never forget the sight of him braying with Brand over that notorious phone call - and this from someone who gets very protective over his own wife and daughter

Absolutely to times being very different.

In the early 80’s, we too had subjects at school that only boys and only girls could do. We also had subjects that the ‘A stream’ couldn’t do, including ‘homemaking’ and ‘childcare’.

My dad was appalled that I could drop cookery and take chemistry. He was also appalled when my physics teacher suggested I become an engineer.

I questioned why I had to wash up at home and my brother didn’t. My dad’s answer was ‘because you are a girl’. My mum is still the biggest misogynist going, plays my achievements down, ignores me as soon as my male partner speaks, when discussing my professional role, added ‘but her partner was her boss’ and just last week, when I talked about my partner and I working together in our business, said ‘oh so you are his assistant’, I had to add ‘no, fellow director’.

My young male secondary school teachers, presented me with a ‘tap’ at a school disco. They laughed when I looked puzzled and said ‘think what you do to a tap’ (turn on).

I went to a party at my friends parents house. My friends and I aged 14, slept on the floor, in a line, alternate between four local male journalists, who tried to ‘swap’ between us. After realising what was happening, I got up and sat on the stairs until morning.

At the time when some radio 1 DJ’s were charged, women came forward and said ‘but I know what I was doing, I lied to my parents, I hid and got dressed up, I lied about my age, I wanted to sleep with them, I wanted to marry one, I wanted that life’. Same with girls hanging around footballers.

Context really is a thing. Think of the storyline in Billy Elliot, young dancer, tough mining father and his shame.
Hindsight would be a special talent.

I know people who worked at BBC during this time. Lesley Douglas was a horror, she facilitated RB’s behaviour, there are incidents which occurred in front of many people, RB putting his head in her chest and pretended to be breast feeding. She was either hating every minute, in which case why didn’t she sack him- she was head of Radio 2, or she bloody loved being part of it all.

You won’t find many people who will say a nice word about her and it makes me so angry that women have facilitated RB’s behaviour rather than protected young women.

To remind the infamous phone call by Ross and Brand occurred in 2008.

That's grim. I've never seen JR much as always found him creepy and misogynistic, but i watched the Amy Winehouse one and he was creepy then too. She handled him well and she was very young then.

The thing is most men are like that, they just know they can get away with it less and less now.

Yes he was 26, she was 16. They got married a month after she turned 18, he was 28.

Nasty.

What has he done?

I worked with Jane Goldman (as she was then) in magazine publishing and she was a very smart 17 year old, she wasn’t some vulnerable young woman who was groomed into a relationship with JR. she was fiercely independent and came from a very liberal creative background. The fact that they are still together says a lot about their relationship.

Yes, here is another extract from this time: In 2008, Brand was said to have laughed as his co-presenter on his BBC radio show, Morgan, said Brand “showed his willy to a lady”.

Brand had quite a lot of "supporters" - like Jonathan Ross:

Russell Brand had a loyal UK entourage. Where are they now?

@charliehungerford I am dubious about any 26 year old who pursues a relationship with a 16 year old. I don’t have to think it is grooming to think that it is really off.

I heard the broadcast when it was transmitted as I was, to my shame, a bit of a Brand fan! On reflection I am not proud at all but at the time I found his madness funny and I honestly thought it was all a kind of panto. I did not notice anything that you can see now on reflection. However I did think the Sachs broadcast was odd, I was very surprised that they had broadcast it as it was about a named person and they appeared to be leaving a message for a named person. Having worked in the media I was surprised that it had been broadcast as it seemed to have crossed a line. I always loved Matt Morgan and his sort of heartbroken attempts to manage Brand. After the Sachs call I definitely became less interested.

But I do have sympathy with the production teams who effectively supported this man. ‘Talent’ often spend years without any power and being treated like they don’t exist. Production staff who wouldn’t return your calls last month are suddenly begging you to call them. I used to book people onto programmes and the pressure is frightening. There is nothing worse than being the booker who hasn’t secured anyone good for a live show going out that night. People in the media are often very scared for their jobs and getting the next job. I know that the judgment of those around Brand was skewed by that kind of panic. I’m not making any excuse but I know from my time making programmes that sometimes desperation destroys your judgement. And I bet a lot of people thought his chat was panto and that the women were enthusiastically consenting.

Also, and this is not excusing him at all but I do think his behaviour was in part owing to his dad’s creating a very toxic sexualised environment around a young boy. Not excusing anything but it is clear that there are some contributing factors to create this kind of destructive sexual violence. It feels very misogynistic while pretending to adore women.

I hate to think about porn generally but I know that Brand saw a huge amount as a young child. I’m surprised that his defence didn’t use his appalling father’s influence as an explanatory, if not a mitigating influence.

Again, I am delighted that a rape conviction has been made as they are notoriously difficult cases to win for the victims. But also I know that rape is still underreported and we live in a world awash with porn. I feel like we should look at Brand and also ask what made him behave like this so we can reduce this toxicity.

Het up - bit misogynistic there

Would you still be OK with a 26 year old dating a 16 year old now, out of interest?

Agree with @SheilaFentiman , it's not really relevant what her personality or behaviour was like. It's HIS behaviour that's off.

I've just read an article in the Times about it. They didn't actually make up. She went to see him for the last time as he had advanced dementia. She said that she apologised to him and he looked directly at her as she did so.

She isnt sure to this day whether he understood what she was saying or even if he knew who she was

It's really sad.

It was definitely poor judgement on his part but his punishment was losing his bbc gig. He hasn’t done anything stupid since (to my knowledge) so I don’t think we need to cancel him so many years later. People get second chances.