LONDON (AP) — Russell Brand will face accountability Monday for sexual abuse that occurred just behind the scenes in a public life built around boasting about his erotic exploits.
Brand, 51, could face significant prison time after being found guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others.
The British actor-comedian known for his outrageous stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol has maintained that he is innocent and that all of his encounters were consensual.
But a jury of eight men and four women found him guilty of attacking four of six accusers over allegations dating back to 2004. He was cleared of two counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault.
Brand wore a gray suit and open-collared shirt with a loose white tie. Her long, graying hair was pulled back and tied into a bun at the top of her head.
He had arrived at Southwark Crown Court in a prison van shortly after his wife, Laura, entered the courthouse without him. Brand had been free during the trial, but was jailed after the verdict and did not return home Thursday with his wife.
Some of Brand’s supporters reflecting his recent conversion to Christianity held a banner with crosses that read: “Russell Brand, we stand with you. Christ was crucified for speaking the truth. Russell is the truth.”
Brand was partly damned at trial by his own words about his obsession with sex and his well-documented life of promiscuity.
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones called Brand a ruthless, calculating and manipulative “sexual predator” who treated women like “disposable merchandise.”
She cited her 2007 memoir “My Booky Wook” to illustrate how her insatiable libido led her to cross the line.
“If I want anything – whether it be a job or a wife – I will with determination and resolution remove everything that hinders me, until I possess the object of my desire,” he wrote.
The accusers came forward following a 2023 investigation by The Times and Channel 4 which aired accusations from women who claimed they had been sexually assaulted and degraded by Brand.
Brand was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman at a birthday party in a London bar in 2004, but was cleared of orally raping her in the toilet.
He was also convicted of kissing and groping another woman at a London radio station in 2004 or 2005 and of anally raping a fan at his home after meeting her backstage at one of his comedy shows in 2009.
The final conviction involves the sexual assault of another woman who claims the comedian asked for a massage and pressed his face against her groin while recording a commercial in 2009.
Brand was acquitted of raping another woman in a hotel room at the Labor Party’s annual conference in the seaside town of Bournemouth in 1999, and of attempting to indecently assault a woman by dragging her into the men’s toilet at the London office of the music channel MTV.
The Associated Press does not name victims of alleged sexual violence and British law protects their identities from the media for life.
Brand, known for his daring stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol, rose to prominence in the early 2000s hosting television programs and his own BBC radio show. He appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek” and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.
In recent years, he moved away from mainstream media, moved to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion.
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