Editor’s note: This story contains details of alleged sexual offenses that some readers might find distressing.
A testimony from Russell Brand’s former assistant painted a picture of what it was like to work for him in the 2000s, when the Forgetting Sarah Marshall The star’s rape and sexual assault trial enters its third week.
The AP, who worked for Brand during the decade in which most of the alleged assaults took place, said he “liked to walk around in his underwear and no shirt,” had an “insane sexual appetite” and “never seemed happy after sex, even more depressed.”
Brand faces three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one of indecent assault based on allegations made by six women. His team will present its defense later in the trial. He denies all charges and pleads not guilty. Deadline has been carrying a daily live video feed from the courtroom since the trial began.
The aide said she spent a lot of time at Brand’s apartment and was “emotionally exhausted” by the end because he had “a lot to deal with.”
She said he was incredibly busy at the time with his presenting, media and comedy work and at the same time claimed his “crazy sexual appetite” meant women were constantly coming to his flat or dressing rooms. The AP was once told not to bring Brand’s mother or girlfriend into his dressing room because he was having sex and “didn’t want them to see it,” she claimed.
“At some point I realized that he didn’t often know the women who came to my house,” the statement read. “He was like a peacock, women always approached him.”
While Brand was working and she was in his apartment, the woman claimed that Brand was “joking with me and saying, ‘Can I go have sex now?’ She added that he “never seemed happy after sex, and even more depressed.”
The aide stressed that she “never saw Russell Brand do anything against the law and no one has disclosed anything like that.”
She added: “I’ve worked with celebrities before and seen a lot of people normalizing bad behavior, but this was on another level. Everyone normalizing Russell Brand’s behavior made me think, ‘I guess that’s how it is here.'”
She said she eventually stopped working with Brand because she was “fed up with him and felt burned out.”
Brand arrived once again at Southwark Crown Court in London this morning with his wife Laura Gallacher. His ex-assistant’s statement will be one of the last pieces of evidence in the prosecution’s case, with Brand’s defense set to begin tomorrow and the actor expected to testify.
“He was a superstar.”
Earlier, witness statements were read to the jury by people associated with three of Brand’s accusers.
One accuser previously said she complained to Channel 4 about Brand’s behavior in 2009 after he allegedly put his head on her lap and asked for a massage.
According to testimony from one of the complainant’s colleagues on Channel 4, he was told that two of Brand’s associates had ordered him to perform the massage on several occasions or he would not record a radio advert. She said her co-worker told her that Brand’s associates “watched and laughed” during the alleged assault.
The jury also read text messages from another accuser, who said she was attacked at a radio station, explaining why she did not report him at the time. “He was a superstar,” the texts read. “I thought nothing would happen to him.”
The sister of another alleged victim, who said she was orally raped by Brand while attending a television producer’s birthday party, provided a statement saying her brother told her that Brand’s eyes went “completely blank, and it was like he had been possessed or was a completely different person” during the alleged attack.
The trial continues.
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