Friends, parents and a former boyfriend of the woman who alleges Brand raped her in 2009 gave evidence at Southwark Crown Court. Brand, 51, denies all charges, and says every sexual encounter was consensual.
A friend of the woman who accuses Russell Brand of rape has told a jury the woman feared he had “tracked her down” when they were both at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Brand is accused of raping the woman, then 21, at his Hampstead home in 2009, days after she met him at the Hammersmith Apollo. He denies three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault, brought by six women. The woman cannot be named, as complainants in sexual offence cases have lifelong anonymity.
The Edinburgh evidence
The friend told the court she was with the woman at the festival, where Brand was also performing. She said he was “flamboyant” and had “announced that he had arrived”. The woman’s face was “white as a sheet”, the friend said, and she was worried that Brand had “tracked her down”.
The friend said Brand sent the woman messages. “He really wanted to see her again and have sex,” she told the jury, adding that the messages were “crude” and “sexual”. Another report says she described repeated messages and calls that seemed to become more insistent when the woman did not reply. There is no evidence that Brand actually tracked her movements. The concern was attributed to the woman and her friend.
The friend also described what the woman told her about the alleged rape. “She said she felt humiliated, scared and violated, and in a lot of physical pain,” she said.
Changes in the woman
The friend said the woman went from being a “bright, bubbly and confident girl” to struggling with alcoholism and her mental health. “This experience definitely changed her,” she told jurors. “It’s like she lost respect for herself after that day, she blames herself for what happened.”
She said she went with the woman to a meeting with a Sunday Times journalist when the woman was considering speaking out about Brand. The woman was trying to get sober and had mental health difficulties at the time. “She is a vulnerable person,” the friend said. “Her mental health was not great, she was in early recovery.”
The former boyfriend
Under cross-examination by Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter KC, the woman’s former boyfriend said she was “very upset” whenever she talked about her encounter with Brand. “It was something she didn’t want to talk about. She characterised it as an assault,” he said.
His statement said: “In conversations with her, [she] believed some of her physical interactions with Russell were regarded as rape. I think she used the term rape.” Asked about the messages from Brand at the festival, he said: “She didn’t want to receive them, she didn’t know how to deal with them, she wanted them to go away.”
According to the Guardian, as set out in the research notes, Mr Winter asked him about the wording of a June 2025 statement that appeared to suggest the woman had eventually agreed to the sexual act. That is a disputed point. The former boyfriend was recounting conversations with her, not an encounter he saw.
Family and other witnesses
The woman’s mother said she remembered hearing her daughter describe “screaming out in pain” while telling Brand to stop. Her father told her: “That is rape”. The research notes say her parents said she stayed with them for about two months, very unwell, and that they took her for medical attention because she feared she might have contracted a sexually transmitted infection.
Friends and family gave evidence that she did not go to the police at the time. “She didn’t think she would be believed, and she didn’t think it would be worth it to go,” one friend told the jury. “She kind of put it behind her.”
The Guardian reports that a work colleague said the woman looked pale and unwell when she described the alleged incident, and that she feared she would be blamed because she had gone to Brand’s home willingly. Press Association reporting says a friend remembered seeing her curled up on a bed with a hot-water bottle. The witnesses were describing what she told them and what they saw afterwards. They did not witness the alleged assault. The Guardian says 24 witnesses connected to the woman were heard, which does not mean 24 eyewitnesses.
The case against Brand
Jurors have heard that Brand picked the woman out in the foyer after the Apollo show so that she and another woman could have a threesome with him backstage. She told the court she went willingly. She says that at his home a few days later he turned a consensual encounter into rape. Brand denies all the charges and says all sexual encounters were consensual but have since been “reimagined” by his accusers.
The Times reported that the jury heard about a 999 call made by a different complainant after an alleged indecent assault in 2001. A call does not itself show that an offence took place.
Mr Justice Bennathan sent the jury away until Monday 26 October, when the prosecution is expected to close its case. Brand’s defence is due to start on Tuesday 27 October. The trial is expected to continue for several more weeks, and no verdict has been reached.
