By Michael Holden
LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters) – British comedian and actor Russell Brand, on trial for a string of alleged historical sex offences, told a court on Wednesday that he had dedicated his life to reckless philandering and idiocy but said consent was always non-negotiable.
Brand, once a regular figure on British television and star of a number of Hollywood movies, was giving evidence at London’s Southwark Crown Court, where he is accused of three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and an attempted indecent assault involving six women between 1999 and 2009.
The 51-year-old former husband of US singer Katy Perry denies all the allegations.
“I have been persuasive, seductive, begging and flirting, and have dedicated a lot of my life to what seems now beyond reckless philandering and idiocy,” he told the court towards the end of about four hours of evidence.
“I was in a position of fame. As I became more successful and famous I was very comfortable allowing that to facilitate sexual access, which I agree was wrong.”
The jury has previously been told how all the complainants came forward to detectives after a documentary was broadcast in 2023 along with a number of newspaper articles in which anonymous allegations were made by other women who are not involved in the trial.
Brand, wearing a black suit with an open-neck white shirt and a loose black tie, said the impact had been “devastating”. He agreed with his lawyer Ian Winter that his friends would now not “touch you with a bargepole”.
Brand, who said his 14-month marriage to Katy Perry in 2010 had brought him “staggering fame,” said he had even been barred by a hospital from staying with his son after he had had open heart surgery.
‘CONSENT IS FUNDAMENTAL’, BRAND SAYS
Prosecutors say Brand raped a woman after meeting her at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in 1999, forced a woman to give him oral sex in toilets at a London bar in 2004, and molested another woman at a radio station in 2004 or 2005.
He is also accused of trying to pull a woman into the male toilets at MTV Europe, in London, where she was working in 2001, and that in 2009 he anally raped a woman who had agreed to consensual sex at his home.
The final allegation is that he assaulted a woman while they were involved in a recording project.
“Consent is fundamental, essential, necessary and indeed more important than sex itself,” Brand told Winter when discussing the first rape allegation.
While he said he did not remember incidents involving three of the complainants, he did recall details about the other alleged rapes, saying both women had either consented or the incident was not as they portrayed.
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones queried why he had told police in four interviews between 2023 and 2025 that he had not previously been able to recall any of the women or the incidents.
“You have constructed your account around some of what they said,” she suggested.
Brand said there had been “escalating recollection” during the process, saying: “It’s been a deeply traumatic episode of my life.”
“I’ve focused on (this) at the expense of my marriage, my children and health … I recognise that this recollection includes small details that are not consistent and I acknowledge that,” he said.
The trial continues, with the jury told it was likely they would be sent out on Tuesday to consider verdicts.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Sam Tobin, Alexandra Hudson, Toby Chopra)
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