A woman who was 21 at the time of the alleged attack in 2009 gave evidence at Southwark Crown Court. Brand, 51, denies all seven charges against him.
A woman has told a jury that Russell Brand raped her at his Hampstead home in 2009, after he singled her out from a line of fans at the Hammersmith Apollo. She was 21 and Brand was 33. The comedian is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault involving six women. He denies every charge, and no verdict has been reached. She cannot be named, as all six complainants have lifelong anonymity.
The woman’s account
The woman, who described herself as a “massive Russell Brand fan”, said Brand pointed at her in a line of female fans in the theatre foyer and said “You”. She was chosen along with a 19-year-old for what she understood to be a threesome. After drinks and a kiss in a bar, she said, he invited her backstage. Sexual activity took place there, she said, and when Brand asked why she had not had sex with him she told him she had a boyfriend. She said he replied: “We are all free. We don’t belong to anyone.”
She said she left upset, describing the experience as “kind of disgusting”. She later told her boyfriend, and they split up. Brand then allegedly texted and called, promising: “I will hold you and help you”. She said she “probably knew it was bull****” but that it was “nice to hear”.
She told the jury she was told to go to a restaurant, give a false name and wait for a driver who took her to his three-storey Hampstead home. She said Brand greeted her with the “bubbly persona” she knew from the stage, and told her it was “the best decision you have ever made”. Upstairs, she said, they had consensual sex but it “felt very awkward”. She said she “just sort of wanted it to be over”.
She alleged that Brand then removed the condom and raped her without warning, pushing her head into a pillow. “I felt like I could not speak and breathe,” she said. “I was not aware that he was going to do that, there was not any conversation.” She said she asked him to stop, quietly at first and then more loudly.
She said Brand later told her to “clean up” and put on the television to watch Quantum Leap. She was shown out by a member of staff, and a driver gave her tissues. She told the court she felt “small and powerless”, stopped eating and sleeping, and developed an addiction to alcohol after blaming herself. She feared she had contracted HIV, but tests were clear.
“It was traumatic,” she said. “He hurt me. He harmed me and when I begged him to stop he didn’t.” She went to the police in 2025. “I don’t want to live with this anymore,” she told them. “I don’t want to die not saying this to the right people.”
Other evidence heard
According to ITV News, prosecutors told jurors in their opening on 14 October that the woman contacted Brand again in 2010, accused him of mistreating her, and that he replied with an apology. The reported apology is not an admission of rape, and its context is for the jury to weigh. The Independent reported that jurors were also shown Metropolitan Police photographs of the Hampstead property. Such images do not on their own show that the alleged assault happened.
The court has heard from other complainants. A journalist wept as she described an incident at a radio station in 2005, saying Brand pinned her against a wall and kissed her while touching her. She said he “just leapt on me” in a cramped booth with other people present. Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter KC, asked a woman who worked at a radio station in the mid-2000s why she had not reported an alleged assault. She said a culture of fear and Brand’s celebrity status deterred her. A Channel 4 worker said Brand put his head in her lap in 2009 after his entourage said she should massage him. She said she felt “repulsed” and that the men laughed. According to ITV News, she told jurors she raised it with her line manager the next day. No management record of how it was handled has been confirmed.
The Guardian reported that the defence challenged a woman from MTV over an alleged assault in Soho in 2004, presenting it as consensual contact, which she disputed. Brand’s former friend Mark Pinheiro described Brand as unusually nervous after a Labour conference in Bournemouth in 1999, which relates to a different allegation. A witness’s impression of someone’s behaviour cannot prove an assault took place.
The trial
The charges cover allegations from 1999 to 2009. The jury of eight men and four women is hearing the case before Mr Justice Bennathan, who has told them to disregard outside reporting and decide on the evidence in court. The trial continues.
