There’s a collective sense of relief that comes from Russell Brand being sentenced to 10 years and six months is palpable.
asserted
Brand → ’ → years
Not just because a jury finding him guilty of rape and sexual assault offers a sliver of justice to a handful of his victims, but also because it decimates the credibility of the spin he spent years applying to his horrendous, and at times criminal, behaviour.
asserted
he → find → behaviour
Long before the allegations aired in court were made public, as well as the countless others that have surfaced (some of which are now under investigation by the UK police), Brand was as much a one-man reputation rehabilitator intent on controlling the narrative as he was a comedian.
asserted
he → air → narrative
When recounting in his 2007 memoir why he was fired from MTV six years’ earlier, for example, Brand implied that the pop star Kylie Minogue was in part to blame.
asserted
star → recount → part
Brand, still an active drug user at the time, said he’d invited his dealer and his dealer’s eight-year-old child to the TV show’s set, where the trio crammed into a bathroom and the two adults smoked crack before taking a tour of the studio.
asserted
adults → say → studio
According to Brand’s telling, it was here that Minogue – who was appearing on the show as a guest – endured an “awkward chat” with the dealer.
uncertain
who → accord → dealer
“I thought: ‘It don’t get any better than this.’
asserted
It → think → this
And it didn’t, cos they sacked me about two days later,” Brand wrote.
asserted
Brand → sack → me
What he put far less emphasis on, though, and what’s far more likely, is that he was fired because that day was September 12, 2001, and in addition to smoking crack at work, he’d shown up dressed as Osama bin Laden.
asserted
he → put → Laden
When he was later asked about his sacking on a US talk show, he was again quick to spin his actions, saying, “when I was a crack and heroin addict, I made some unusual decisions”.
asserted
I → ask → decisions
On his choice of attire, Brand added that it was “the worst time to do it in many ways,” as if to suggest there was a more appropriate time to appear on television dressed as a terrorist responsible for killing thousands of innocent people.
asserted
it → add → people
In a sprawling two-hour-long interview with US right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly earlier this year, Brand again flexed his avid propensity for reframing his past.
asserted
Brand → sprawl → past
When asked about allegations surrounding his involvement with a teenager, which were aired in 2023 but not a part of this criminal trial, Brand said, “I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30.
asserted
I → ask → old
By this telling, it would be easy to walk away thinking that the pair had a one-off sexual encounter that he perhaps now, with hindsight, regretted.
asserted
he → walk → hindsight
What the 51-year-old chose to omit in this recontextualisation of events, and what Kelly did not to push him on, was that the pair allegedly had a relationship for three months while she was still at school.
uncertain
she → choose → school
The now adult woman said that after literally bumping into each other in the street in 2006, where he rifled through her shopping bags and told her what she would wear on a date with him, Brand instructed her to save his phone number under a girl’s name to avoid suspicion from her parents.
asserted
Brand → say → parents
He reportedly nicknamed her “the child”, and became visibly aroused upon learning she was a virgin.
uncertain
she → nickname → her
She also said he taught her how to lie to her parents after they repeatedly tried to keep them apart, and that Brand was once so forcible with her during sex she had to punch him in the stomach to make him stop.
asserted
him → say → stomach
In court last month, Brand painted a sad picture of a man abandoned by all of his friends, colleagues and acquaintances, saying none were willing to give evidence in his defence or support him since the allegations came to light.
asserted
allegations → paint → light
his wife offered glowing portraits of him to the jury and in full glare of the media.
asserted
wife → offer → media
One ex described him as a “gentle, warm, kind and adventurous” man, while another said he had been “introspective, gentle and loving” when they dated.
asserted
they → describe → man
When his wife Laura Brand gave evidence, she said that when they began dating, “it was difficult for him to be monogamous”, an elegant way of rephrasing the fact he refused to stop sleeping with other people.
asserted
he → give → people
They began dating months after Brand and the schoolgirl ended their relationship, and when Laura was 19, and Brand was 31.
asserted
Brand → begin → relationship
After they broke up due to his self-described promiscuity and hedonism, the pair eventually reconciled 10 years ago and now share three young children together.
asserted
pair → break → children
When rewriting this period of history, Brand said that when they first dated, he was “in a phase where I thought the world was an amusement park full of orgasms” – a phase which had seemingly since ended.
asserted
which → rewrite → orgasms
Absent from his view on their past was the fact that Laura’s frontal lobe was still several years off fully forming.
asserted
lobe → form → past
But in the world according to Russell Brand, these pieces of information are less crucial facts and more semantics that detract from what really matters.
uncertain
what → accord → information
Yes, he was a drug addict, but now he’s sober.
asserted
he → ’ → ?
Sure, he slept with a child when he was 14 years her senior, but the law permitted it.
asserted
law → sleep → it
OK, he struggled with not cheating on his partners, but today he’s a proud family man who’s found God.
asserted
who → struggle → God
In painting a detailed picture of “that was then and this is now”, and admitting the error of his ways, Brand tried to preemptively save himself from a legal reckoning by self-imposing a moral one.
asserted
Brand → paint → one
But his one-sided insurance policy has collapsed, and for the first time ever, the full narrative power he once had has crumbled.
asserted
he → collapse → time
Now, his victims have voices that people want to hear, and the microphone he was handed over and over and over again for two decades has been taken away.
asserted
he → have → decades
Maybe he genuinely believes his own spin.
asserted
he → believe → spin
Perhaps in trying to convince the world that he was simply a pants man and not a rapist was his way of trying to convince himself, too.
asserted
way → try → himself
Whatever the case, he now has a decade to sit and think about it.
asserted
he → have → it
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asserted
that → challenge → own
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