Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing
Russell Brand’s wife, Laura Brand, testified Thursday as a character witness at her husband’s rape trial in London.
Russell Brand met his wife in 2006, when she was 19 and he was 31. Laura testified that she met him in September of that year and explained that they broke up in February 2007 due to his infidelity. “I was invested, we both told each other we loved each other, but it was clear it was difficult for him to be monogamous,” she said, according to Sky News. She also claimed that all of their sex was consensual, recalling that Brand respected her wish not to have penetrative sex early in their relationship.
A few years after their breakup with Laura, Brand married Katy Perry in 2010; they divorced the following year, and he and Laura reconnected in 2015. The two then dated for two years before getting married in 2017. They now share three children, ages 10, 8, and 3.
When Brand’s defense attorney, Ian Winter KC, questioned Laura about their marriage, she described Brand as an “amazing husband,” “caring and kind” and “a wonderful father to our children.” When Winter attempted to ask her “opinion on the veracity of the allegations,” the judge rejected the line of questioning, reminding Winters that Laura was not “an expert witness.”
Brand faces three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault against six women, involving incidents between 1999 and 2009. He has denied all allegations against him and described the encounters as consensual. Appearing on Megyn Kelly’s podcast in April, he attempted to defend himself by pointing out that the age of consent in Europe is 16 – and claiming he had “exploitative” but “consensual” sex with a 16-year-old when he was 30.
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