What Is Russell Brand Accused of? Here Are the Allegations From the UK Investigation

This week, following multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment, Russell Brand was dropped by his agent, and his book publisher paused future publication of his work. His content was removed from the BBC and Channel 4’s streaming platforms, and YouTube demonetized his channel.

The reason was a shocking Sept. 16 episode of Channel 4 investigative series Dispatches, titled “Russell Brand: In Plain Sight.” The 78-minute show focused largely on five women who said they had terrible personal experiences with Brand. The U.K. Times and Sunday Times newspapers contributed to the year-long research that went into the show and also published stories on the topic. Brand has “absolutely den[ied]” any wrongdoing and described all of his prior sexual encounters as consensual.

The episode of Dispatches is not yet available in the U.S. because of international broadcasting restrictions, so details of the exact allegations against Brand have so far been difficult to pinpoint on this side of the Atlantic. Below are abridged versions of the accusers’ stories, as told to the makers of Dispatches and broadcast under pseudonyms. 

A warning: Everything that follows is disturbing and, in places, graphic. If you are experiencing trauma for issues relating to sexual assault, please contact RAINN on (800) 656-4673. The helpline is available 24/7 and is completely confidential.

Rachel

In 2003, Rachel worked as a runner on Big Brother’s EForum, a popular British TV show hosted by Brand that followed episodes of the reality show. She and Brand developed a friendship over time. One day, she told Dispatches, when she entered his dressing room, he stood with his penis exposed and requested oral sex. She declined, but said the encounter left her nervous. “He was the presenter,” she told Dispatches. “I was a runner. I didn’t tell anyone what he had done because I didn’t want to lose my job.”

Brand continued to be flirtatious after the incident, and Rachel softened over time, she said. Once they began a sexual relationship, Brand asked that she keep it a secret because sexual relationships with crew members were forbidden in his contract, Rachel recalled.

“As an older woman,” she told Dispatches, “I can say with clarity that I felt like I was groomed for sex.”

Alice

Alice became involved with Brand in 2006, when she was 16 years old and he was 30. (The age of consent in the U.K. is 16.) They met at MTV headquarters in London where Alice was visiting a friend. After Brand asked her out, Alice accepted and spent three months dating him. Alice said that Brand was aroused by the fact that she was a virgin and allegedly once told her, “You’re like my little dolly.”

“I didn’t look like a woman by any means,” Alice told Dispatches. “It shouldn’t be legal for a 16-year-old to have a relationship with a man in his 30s… I didn’t feel like I could argue with a grown-up.”

During her interview with Dispatches, Alice described an alleged incident in which Brand violently forced his penis into her mouth. She said that after she punched him in the stomach to get free and started to cry, he responded: “I only want to see your mascara run anyway.” Alice claimed that later that night, Brand held her mouth open, spat into it repeatedly, then forced her to swallow.

“Russell engaged in the behaviors of a groomer,” Alice told Dispatches. “Looking back, I didn’t even know what that was… He would try to drive a wedge between me and my parents, taught me to lie to them.”

A family friend confirmed to researchers that Alice and Brand were involved during the period she cited.

Nadia

Nadia met Brand at an afterparty for an early taping of his American TV show, Brand X. “He literally made a beeline for me,” she told Dispatches. “We were chatting backstage. He leaned in and kissed me. It was very, very quick.”

Nadia and Brand kept in touch after the encounter and later slept together at his home in Los Angeles. She said that on July 1, 2012, after he invited her over, he greeted her while completely naked and immediately pushed her against a wall. Nadia tried to get away from him, but Brand allegedly persisted.

“I’m telling him to get off me,” Nadia told Dispatches, “and he won’t get off. He got a glazed look in his eye… He’s holding me up against the wall, pushing himself in me. I couldn’t move.” Nadia also told producers that after the alleged rape, Brand asked if she was OK. She told him she was not and ran to her car “in a daze.”

Journalists for Dispatches confirmed the authenticity of a text message Nadia received from Brand at 3:29 that morning. “I’m sorry,” the text read. “That was crazy and selfish. I hope that you can forgive me, I know that you’re a lovely person. X”

Nadia sent Brand a text seven hours later that included the line “When a girl say[s] NO it means no.”

Also that day, Nadia went to a rape crisis center and underwent treatment. She gave staff a detailed, written account of the incident, which Dispatches reviewed. She decided not to go to the police, apparently intimidated by Brand’s fame, and out of concern for the possible repercussions for her family.

Phoebe

Phoebe told Dispatches that she met Brand at an AA meeting in 2013. After the two had consensual sex, Brand asked Phoebe to work for him. She accepted, considering it “a big break.” Phoebe said in her interview that while she worked for Brand, she witnessed “a revolving door of women. Five-plus women a day. Just absolute mayhem.”

Phoebe told Dispatches that one night, after they’d attended an event together as work colleagues, she went to pick up her belongings from his house. “He ended up naked at some point and he wound up chasing me,” Phoebe said. “It got a little more aggressive, and I think then I realized, ‘This is not a joke.'”

Phoebe said Brand locked her in his bedroom, held her down and began trying to have sex with her. “I saw something come over his eyes, I swear to God,” she told Dispatches. “His eyes had no more color. They were black. Like a different person had literally entered his body. I was screaming so loud.”

Phoebe said that Brand eventually snapped out of it, and she managed to escape. She said that Brand attempted to apologize to her several times, but that when she returned to work a few days later, Brand warned her not to talk about what happened and threatened her with legal action. “I felt like I had nowhere to go,” she told Dispatches. “I didn’t feel safe.”

Dispatches interviewed three people whom Phoebe told about the alleged assault after it happened.

Helen Berger, Brand’s PA, 2006-2007

The only woman to appear on camera and provide her real name to Dispatches, Berger worked with Brand for a short but intense period.

Berger told Dispatches that Brand worked consistently in his underwear around her and had “a very active sex addiction” — something he readily publicly admitted at the time. Berger said that Brand shared photos of naked women with colleagues and friends (“I felt shame in that moment,” Berger noted), and repeatedly asked her to acquire phone numbers of female audience members at his MTV talk show, 1 Leicester Square.

Three other former colleagues of Brand’s said he made similar requests of them, usually with audiences predominantly made up of college students. One coworker tasked with getting the women’s numbers described it as “like leading lambs to the slaughter.” Berger said that after receiving phone calls from several women in tears, she and her colleagues raised concerns about Brand to her bosses, to no avail.

Daniel Sloss

Towards the end of the episode, comedian Daniel Sloss told Dispatches that rumors about Brand’s alleged predatory behavior were well-known on the comedy circuit.

“There were many stories,” he said. “It wasn’t just coming from one person or one group of people. It was different incidents over different years and of varying degrees of severity … I know for many, many years, women [comedians] have been warning each other about Russell.”