Russell Brand’s fame and influence arose in part from his exhibitionism, sexual boasting and extravagant self-regard. His convictions and sentencing for ten and a half years for one rape and three sexual assaults concern violations of consent, not promiscuity. Beyond questions of who knew of his crimes and coercive behaviours, which many other commentators are addressing and will address, I want to ask why so many admired his public persona and mistook it for intellectual distinction and political insight.
It would be too easy simply to say that nobody knew what happened behind closed doors. In 2008, Brand and fellow broadcaster Jonathan Ross left obscene messages for the 78-year-old actor Andrew Sachs, discussing Brand’s sexual encounters with Sachs’s granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, attempting to make BBC entertainment out of the elderly man’s humiliation. It was a show of powerful celebrities exploiting others’ private lives for their own amusement.
The journalist Miranda Sawyer reaffirmed her fandom in the Observer soon after this event. Whilst acknowledging the damage, she still described Brand’s wider intentions as “undoubtedly good”, including “to spread the word, to bring joy, to show people that they shouldn’t be fettered by stupid rules if it doesn’t make them happy”. Brand had explained that he could not allow the controversy to inhibit his spontaneity. By this logic, others must absorb the consequences of that spontaneity, whilst acknowledging his faults becomes an occasion to celebrate his complexity. Noel Gallagher minimized the affair as a juvenile prank, while comedy writer Lise Mayer feared a backlash against comic experimentation; neither seemed concerned about the turning of Sachs and Baillie’s private lives into entertainment. Channel 4 and the Guardian retained Brand's programme and column respectively. There were some dissenters from this general tendency to excuse both Brand and Ross, and Ofcom subsequently found that both Sachs and Baillie’s privacy had been infringed.
Brand had explained that he could not allow the Georgina Baillie controversy to inhibit his spontaneity.
The indulgence was sustained by accounts of Brand’s personal magnetism: Felicity Morse, journalist at the Independent, in a 2013 article, took Brand’s intelligence and humour for granted before explaining his unconventional sexual appeal, while in the same year Suzanne Moore defended his political interventions despite the sexism. In Elle magazine in 2011, Holly Millea presented a rapturous portrait of his charisma, and quoted Helen Mirren describing him as someone who “loves women”, is “kind and gracious” and who “makes you feel good”. I recall a range of female TV personalities declaring their wish to sleep with Brand. All are entitled to their desires, but I wonder whether this attraction was a reason his wider behaviours were not called out earlier. Both women and men helped construct Brand as a glamorous figure. Sexual magnetism is very real and can be irrational. But to convert this into a form of moral or intellectual capital is quite another matter.
I wonder whether this attraction was a reason his wider behaviours were not called out earlier.
Watching the rise of Brand reminded me of my schooldays at Chetham’s School of Music, where the Director of Music Michael Brewer’s charisma was readily apparent. I knew nothing of the sexual abuse for which he was convicted in 2013, but distrusted his sleaziness and self-adoration. I also recall how easily dislike of an admired man could be dismissed as jealousy. Criticism of Brand was often waved away in the same terms.
