BRYONY GORDON: The brave women who helped convict Russell Brand have allowed me to
When I read the testimony of Woman Five in the trial of Russell Brand, my teeth began chattering violently.
It was sudden and unexpected, an uncontrollable reaction that gripped my body as the words from witness statements fired up neurons in my brain, dislodging long-buried memories of my own demeaning encounters with the comedian.
As I read this brave woman’s words – him asking her to have a shower and brush her teeth before the appalling encounter – I realised I was shaking like a leaf, and I was crying, too.
My body was finally releasing something it had known for 21 years, something my brain had not ever fully allowed it to accept: that Russell Brand was a cruel and ruthless predator, and I was far from the only woman who had been degraded by him.
I was 25 when I was sent to interview Russell Brand. He was an up-and-coming comedian and had just begun presenting a Big Brother spin-off show, and despite what his lawyer Ian Winter KC said in court, I had no idea of his reputation, other than that he was a few years clean and sober from heroin addiction.
We met in a cafe in Primrose Hill, and I remember being completely thrown when this funny, sparky Fagin-like creature almost immediately began propositioning me, telling me how beautiful I was and asking if he could kiss me.
Russel Brand, pictured in 2012, was jailed for more than ten years this week after being convicted of rape and sexual assault
Bryony Gordon was sent to interview Brand when she was 25. He told her how beautiful she was and asked if he could kiss her
I remember I giggled a lot. Afterwards, he insisted on walking me to the Tube station, and the whole way there, he continued to ask if he could kiss me, while I continued to tell him he couldn’t. I returned to the office, and within moments my phone began ringing – he had got my number from his PR. And so began a bombardment, 20 or 30 phone calls and texts a day.
These are red flags now, but you have to remember that this was the Noughties, a time when comedians on panel shows were doing skits about rape.
I was bulimic, depressive, riddled with OCD and I now realise in active alcoholism: what little self-esteem I did have was largely derived from the validation of men, whom I looked to in that post-Bridget-Jones era for something approaching safety and security. I am not proud to admit this. In fact, it makes me feel pretty sad. But it’s just how things were in 2005, for me at least.
What I’m trying to say is that, while I can now see I was experiencing Brand’s narcissistic lovebombing, at the time I was completely and utterly dazzled by it. I remember he called me and sang James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful down the phone. It was not something I’d ever experienced before. I was hooked. Eventually, I agreed to go on a date with him. We went for Sunday lunch, and then to see a movie at the cinema.
He invited me back to his for drinks – I remember thinking how funny it was that, given he didn’t drink himself, he had stocked his fridge with alcohol for me. Another red flag, of course – but at the time… At the time, at the time, at the time… how much heavy lifting must those three words do?
Again and again, he asked me if I found him attractive, as if I and I alone could give him the validation he needed.
Brand outside Southwark Crown Court in London with his wife Laura, who stood by his side throughout his trial
Brand is now being probed over new abuse claims after ‘multiple reports’ came in following his conviction
Just before we kissed, he asked me to gargle with mouthwash. It made me feel like there was something wrong with me, something grotesque, and I am ashamed to say that this, in turn, made me want to please him, to do as he said.
I now know, from Woman Five’s testimony, that he often did this kind of thing, but back then, I thought it was just me.
I’m not going to go into the details of the rest of my night with Brand. But what I will say is that when I left the next day, any discomfort I had about the encounter I blamed squarely on myself.
I thought I was the problem, not him – I was a prude, not adventurous or sparkly enough for a man as charismatic and charming as him. I did not have the self-esteem or the confidence to be the woman Russell Brand clearly wanted me to be, and in some fundamental way, I felt like a failure because of it. Ashamed.
Like so many other things that caused me shame at the time, I turned the experience into a funny story.
Like Brand, I got good at making jokes about it. It was all just a bit of a laugh, wasn’t it? We were slap-bang in the middle of the Noughties, when culture at large – from music videos to comedy shows – did not take women seriously. How on earth could I be expected to grant that grace to myself?
Hi, I’m Alex Matthews, Editor of The Crime Desk.
Russell Brand has been found guilty of rape and three sexual assaults – and our reporters Caroline Cheetham and Liz Hull covered every single day of the case at Southwark Crown Court. Now they’re diving even deeper, speaking to detectives who helped bring him down, lawyers specialising in sexual offence cases and psychologists on what happens to the victims.
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I briefly mentioned my encounter with Brand in a book I wrote in 2013, about my crazy, out-of-control 20s. Even now, reading it back, I can see the shame dripping off the page, the way I attempted to turn seedy things I’d experienced into hilarious anecdotes that would make people laugh, instead of leaving them feeling uncomfortable.
(Sample:’ ‘Bryony, tell everyone the Russell Brand story,’ said a friend, with a wink and a nudge. Oh no. Not the Russell Brand story. Anything but the Russell Brand story. I grimace. Shake my head… there were… hundreds of other girls with a Russell Brand story.’)
Otherwise, I did a good job of shoving my experience with Brand in a box, locking it up, and then burying it somewhere deep in my brain where I never had to look at it. I remember feeling surprised when he wasn’t called out during the MeToo movement of 2017, but this only led me to bury the box even deeper, in the belief I was probably mad, and almost certainly over-reacting.
When the allegations surfaced about Brand in 2023, I briefly allowed myself to look at the box. But even then it felt too frightening, too risky. We had friends in common, and my life was a million miles away from the one I led in 2005 – I was sober, married, a mother, and I had much better things to do with my time than spend any of it dwelling on Russell Brand.
I even entertained the possibility that he was a changed man. In 2024, when it became clear that the Crown Prosecution Service was preparing to make a case against him, I felt slightly emboldened to write in this column about the red flags I experienced with him back in 2005. I felt sick with anxiety the day it was published, just as I feel sick with sadness and anger now.
It has only been in the last few weeks, and thanks to the incredible bravery of the women who came forward, that I have been able to really acknowledge the box I buried my memories of Russell Brand in. To realise that the box is an all-too-common one, which many women carry, and that maybe, just maybe, we no longer have to carry it alone, or in shame.
Russell Brand was able to offend within the blurred lines and murkiness of the Noughties, and I will forever be grateful to the six women who came forward for at last bringing that into sharp, painful focus.
I do not know if they will ever read this, but I would like to wish them the very best for the rest of their lives. I would like to say thank you.
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