Brand used fame to 'facilitate' sex but consent was key, he tells jury

In Russell Brand's iPhone 5 was a contact by the name of T [redacted] AP **.

She was a 21-year-old who had been "picked out" to meet the then-33-year-old comedian after his 2009 stand-up gig Scandalous at London's Apollo Theatre.

The woman's name has been suppressed by the courts, but the acronyms and symbols around it represent Mr Brand's labelling system for women back then.

Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing.

The T stood for "Tart", the 51-year-old explained to London's Southwark Crown Court, where he is now on trial for raping her.

Tart was a word he used to identify women available for "casual hook-ups", he said.

AP stood for "anal play": the sexual act the young woman had performed "upon first meeting me" in the theatre's dressing room, he told the jury.

The two asterisks by her name, he said, were a symbol to "never ever forget this individual".

That individual alleges a week later Mr Brand "painfully" raped her at his house before telling her "to clean up the mess you have made".

Russell Brand denies that he raped her, telling the court she had consented.

Outlining his method for storing women's phone numbers formed part of Mr Brand's defence argument this week as he recounted the night they met.

He spent more than four hours on the stand responding to the allegations himself, telling the court he had struggled to convince any other friend or acquaintance to give evidence on his behalf.

Five other women, who met the actor and comedian in various work, social or political settings, have also accused Mr Brand of either rape, sexual assault or attempted indecent assault between 1999 and 2009, allegations Mr Brand also denies.

Mr Brand said while he used to be promiscuous, obsessed with sex and misused his fame "very, very selfishly" to "facilitate sexual access", he never did anything non-consensual.

At the time, by his own admission in court, Mr Brand was on the cusp of fame and "increasingly focused" on his "promiscuity" and "womanising".

He had not yet married — and later divorced — US singer Katy Perry, which he said catapulted him into "staggering fame" in 2010, but was starting to be recognised in some circles.

"I have been persuasive, seductive, begging and flirting, and have dedicated a lot of my life to what seems now beyond reckless philandering and idiocy," he told the court.

"As I became more successful and famous, I was very comfortable allowing that to facilitate sexual access, which I agree was wrong."

But the issue at the heart of this case is consent.

Mr Brand has acknowledged having sexual relations with some of his accusers, at times recounting them in graphic detail from the witness box. But he insists every encounter was consensual.

It was a point the judge, Justice Joel Bennathan, made unmistakably clear during cross-examination.

"You knew consent was the million-dollar question," he told Mr Brand.

Consent was "fundamental" to Mr Brand, the comedian told the jury, and "in many ways more important than sex itself".

But the prosecution alleges Mr Brand believed in "birthright orgasm" and was so consumed by sex and women, he "didn't care if a woman protested", he "could not leave without a conquest".

"All you were concerned about was getting yourself off, wasn't it, Mr Brand?" prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC asked him.

"I had a variety of complex concerns like any human being," he responded.

When the Crown prosecutor asked Mr Brand if his only two hobbies at the time were sex and comedy, he responded: "West Ham, animals, veganism."

The court heard that Mr Brand told a friend in 1999 that his "main ambition was that one day he would have slept with well over 5,000 girls".

Under cross-examination, Mr Brand said he did not recall that conversation but agreed he may have said it.

One woman, who has accused Mr Brand of sexually assaulting and raping her at a London bar in 2004, told the court Mr Brand pulled her into the toilets, locked the door and would not let her go as he raped her.

Mr Brand initially could not remember the incident, the court heard, but a recent visit to the bar and that cubicle had helped him recall "the encounter".

He told the jury having sex in public toilets was not uncommon for him at the time.

"In media, in the early 2000s, people going in and out of bathrooms didn't attract a huge amount of attention," he told the jury.

Mr Brand told the jury he now remembered the woman was "wide-eyed", greeted him with "enthusiastic flirting" and was "happy" to go into the bathroom "to fool around".

The court heard Mr Brand blamed the allegations on a 2023 UK documentary, Russell Brand: In Plain Sight: Dispatches.

When that documentary aired sexual assault allegations against Mr Brand into lounge rooms across the UK, he was performing on stage to a sold-out crowd.

The prosecution will rely on the fact six women who do not know each other came forward with allegations, arguing that is beyond coincidence.

Six women, who the prosecution said had not "sought the limelight, "had nothing to gain" and were not after financial compensation.

But the defence says there is another link: the 2023 program that led to the comedian's arrest, suggesting it encouraged some of the women to rewrite their history with Mr Brand and corrupted their memories of what took place.

The actor said his life had been all but "consumed" by the allegations since, at the expense of his marriage and relationship with his children.

Mr Brand agreed with his lawyer that friends and colleagues would now not touch him with a "barge pole" since the allegations came to light.

His wife of nine years, Laura, was the only person other than Mr Brand himself to physically take the stand in support of him.

Ms Brand, who hosts a weekly podcast with her husband, has walked hand in hand with the Hollywood star every day, listening intently to the evidence and diligently taking notes.

Speaking clearly and confidently, she told the jury she knew Mr Brand had slept with a lot of women but he had never made her do anything sexually she had not wanted to.

Mr Brand was the most animated he has been throughout the trial during his wife's 20 minutes of evidence, nodding along and mouthing words in her direction, particularly when she spoke about his recent baptism in London's River Thames.

Two other ex-partners of his — the only other witnesses in his defence — provided written statements saying while he was "unfaithful" and "promiscuous", he never engaged in an intimate act with them without their consent.

Speaking to the jury, the prosecutor said while Mr Brand "may now treat women with kindness and respect" and "may now have a different view of consent", they needed to consider what the now 51-year-old was like up to 25 years ago when the alleged offending occurred.

All the evidence in the trial has now concluded, and next week the jury is expected to retire to decide whether or not Mr Brand raped, sexually assaulted and attempted to indecently assault six women over the course of a decade.