Russell Brand

[Wassapp]

AIBU to think... 'here we go again?'

Anyone watching? I've always said 'innocent until proven guilty' but also 'there is no smoke without fire'.

Having been sexually assaulted myself, one of the stories seem so similar to mine.

What's your thoughts?

This is the most confusing post, I know. I just don't know how I feel.

No she was twenty.
There's a lot of Chinese whispers.

I was one person who said this (re: Peaches) and I've realised I was totally wrong. It was Noel Fielding she was seeing at 16.

I can't think of any who were the subject of an in depth UK TV investigation like this, but were eventually found to be innocent?

There was Huw Edwards, who was absolutely ripped apart although he did nothing illegal. I don't think that was on the basis of an indepth investigation?

@Wanderingowl I think you are right about him setting his current grift up as defence against the inevitable : pitch himself against ‘the man’ and MSM and anything they publish on him is just to take the truth teller down.
His online following increased by 100k last night alone.
He won’t be held to account and he’ll continue making money on the trauma he inflicted by using it as ‘proof’ he’s a threat to the establishment.

Seeing his fans rally round him and a woman standing up in the audience with a sign shouting about believing him made me despair. I expect it of men, but it’s somehow worse when a woman defends a man against multiple allegations of sexual abuse.

But I haven't done that. I have condemned rape.

No need to lie to try to make a point.

I referenced earlier in this thread the HM Advocate v Alex Salmond case. This thread is a rehash of the social media gossip that preceded that court case (with social media ghouls and gossips proclaiming his guilt by virtue of persona).

Your fundamental flaw conclusion is interesting, because the Scottish Government was in the same position - in receipt of accusations that they'd ignored his conduct throughout his tenure as First Minister. Alex Salmond however was adamant that these senior Scottish Government figures were in fact the very ones behind (what he considered to be) a plot to remove him from public life and send him to prison. The juxtaposition was identical.

Alex Salmond was put on trial at the high court charged with 14 offences (2 counts of attempted rape, 9 of sexual assault, 2 of indecent assault, and 1 of breach of the peace). The jury found him not guilty of 12 charges (with 1 charge dropped and 1 charge not proven).

@TheShinmeister your posts make zero sense. Is the govt out to get RB because he’s outspoken and trying to bring them down, or is he now ‘hardly a very powerful figure’, ie what would be the point in trying to bring him down?

👏👏👏

That is a good point about Salmond. However, Salmond didn't tell disgusting jokes about forcing his penis down a woman's throat and enjoying hearing her gag and seeing her mascara run. He didn't joke with Savile about sending his assistant over naked. I think he was operating in plain sight all along, as per the title of the documentary.

Sorry - haven't rtft, but sometimes I like to just respond to the OP without the influence of pps...(that's my excuse!).

'In plain sight' is the operative phrase. I only know of this vile man from his Paxman interview and a few headlines (oh, and the appalling 'prank' he and sleaze-bag Jonathan Ross played on Andrew Sachs, too). So I'd never seen his stage show until the Dispatches programmme. It was beyond vile, vulgar, misogyinistic, crude and not funny. Why is any of his subsequent behaviour a surprise to anyone at all? From the short clips of his stand-up act he came over as a disgusting person.

But what did shock me was the complacent attitude of the media (BBC and Channel 4) to his behaviour. Have they really learned nothing from the Jimmy Savile era? Several of the women mentioned a 'boys will be boys' and 'well, that's what the talent does - shut up and get on with it' attitude from the management. Those runners for TV shows would find themselves sacked very quickly, I'm sure, if they reported Brand's deviant behaviour and tried to get anything done about it.

I was most nauseated by the pious and hyprocritical mission statements from these media bodies at the end. And people say the Victorians were sexually hyprocritical! They had nothing on modern media folk.

Russell Brand was the goose that laid the golden eggs, and no amount of disgusting, criminal behaviour was going to stop the cash-flow for them until these brave women (and Dispatches reporters) spoke up.

I hope he never works again in the media.

Oh and (irrelevant and petty though this is), he's physically repulsive with his back-combed frizz and greasy, sweaty face.

Yuk.

That was Pixie.

Ah, right.

I watched the programme last night and apart from being revolted by a lot of the details it made me realise something about what to do - if possible - when confronted with behaviour that over-steps the mark.

In one bit Russell Brand 'jokily' starts kissing and pawing a female presenter while they're filming. She shows she's shocked but kind of has to go along with it and I realised that that kind of behaviour needs to be nipped in the bud straight away if possible. Please note, I stress if possible as I know that people freeze up through shock and it may be a very dangerous situation where words won't work. I was wondering what would have happened if the presenter he was groping had told him firmly to stop it the minute he'd grabbed her. That's why I think it's so good that everyone held firm against Luis Rubiales.

Please note, I completely understand though why that situation played out the way it did as the presenter was in a very difficult situation.

You seem to be believing what Russel Brand says without question. That surprises me more.

I wonder if ‘the look’ was kind of part of it though? I was in my mid teens when RB was in his hey-day and remember thinking he was sort of edgy and ‘hot’. Now I’m 35 and am absolutely repulsed by it - even without the sleazy stand up routine I would be embarrassed to be seen with him dressed like such a dickhead. Makes sense if he’s going after literal girls and younger, more vulnerable women? The clip with Steven Merchant touched on this didn’t it?

@Swissmrs i imagine for that presenter and for many women who have been placed in that position in public view, when everyone else is laughing along, the pressure not to be seen as a mood killer or prude is huge.

Had she told him to piss off or pushed him off it’s far more likely she’d have been the one dragged through the court of public opinion for being so uptight.

And it’s still ingrained in so many of us that men are right so we doubt our own agency or instinct.

The kind who thinks her daughter will leave home if she doesn't? Move in with RB? Move in with another sleaze instead?

It's the balance of staying in your child's life at all costs, v allowing them to be even more vulnerable.

It def all happened, if not to those individuals then there’s someone out there where RB would have overstepped the boundaries. You think he pursued or cared about consensual? The man does not respect himself so why would he respect anyone else?

That makes him a successful YouTube grifter, it doesn’t mean he’s not a YouTube grifter, or that he isn’t influential. Both things can be, and are in this case, true.

It absolutely does still happen. Only last Christmas out with my 25 year old daughter & friends a man lifted up her friends dress to look at her underwear (she actually had shorts in so he saw nothing). About a hour later in the same pub a man grabbed my arse. I’m 50 & overweight so no idea why I was targeted but he was met with an almighty slap in the face & he was promptly escorted out by the bouncer.
I’m shocked that this behaviour still goes on, I thought it ended years ago but apparently not unfortunately.

I haven’t seen the documentary but read the evidence in the Times. The rape allegation is about as iron clad evidence wise as you can get. She messaged him about it the same night it happened and he apologised and has the evidence of this and Times have verified it was his number. She told multiple people the same day and went to a rape crisis centre with a friend the same day where they took DNA samples. She also underwent 5 months of therapy to deal with the trauma and the rape allegations are all in her medical therapy notes which have also been reviewed by the Times.

Short of having a rape on video tape this is as iron clad as cases like this get. I’d be shocked if he’s not arrested and convicted.

I was struck by how we tolerated things we would not now. The Radio 2 dialogue for example

I’m also interested in the repercussions of this

On one hand not being actively engaged by those media outlets that used to cover up his behaviour and promote him has meant they can expose much more easily, oth his use of non MS media means he can continue to broadcast

I don’t know if we’ll see a HE type resolution

’in plain sight’ was an interesting title, because it made me reflect on the entire culture of the late 90s/early Noughties when all kinds of revolting, regressive sexist attitudes were all over the media- worse stuff that Benny Hill or any of the 70s imo: worse because it was somehow supposed to be ‘ironic’ and often done by men who were deemed ‘cool’/ indie somehow. In the mainstream there was Loaded magazine, FHM, Skinner and Baddiel, the vile Chris Moyles, and then you had the likes of Brand, who was posited as different to the mainstream but in fact was exactly the same in levels of misogyny.

Absolutely NO! That mother has to be held accountable. Better that she puts her foot down and the girl leaves home than facilitate it. At least then she’s demonstrated a boundary.

everyone needs to own up to their part and take responsibility, including the 16 year old who got herself entangled with a drug addict rockstar type, deceiving her parents and ignoring the pleas of the driver.

otherwise what you’re saying is that women do not have agency and that us not true. We do have agency. And we are NOT beyond reproach for our actions. That we are so weak we can’t think or act for ourselves. I knew at 16 to keep the fuck away from dirty old men instinctively. Why didn’t that girl. I wouldn’t drive my DD to the home of a monster, why did the mother?