BREAKING: Russell Brand Found GUILTY on Several Charges of Sexual Assault

Welcome, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. We are live on YouTube right now with breaking news out of the United Kingdom. Russell Brand has been found guilty of four of the seven counts he was charged with. The guilty verdicts include one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. Unbelievably, the one count of rape that this jury appears to have bought is what I thought was by far the least credible account. It is complainant five. If you've been following our coverage, you know that that is the woman who alleged that she was raped anally by Russell Brand. This is the woman who, within 10 seconds of meeting Russell Brand in his dressing room after a performance, got down on her knees and started using her tongue to sexually pleasure him in the rear end. That's the one count of rape that this jury appears to have bought. This is the woman who they now say he raped anally at a second encounter they had back at his house. I'm going to get into the details. I should have warned you. It's graphic, but you know that by this point on this case. The Sky News is reporting that there was absolute silence in the courtroom as the foreman delivered the verdicts following nine hours and 13 minutes of jury deliberations. Here's the breakdown of what happened. Count one, rape, not guilty. For this charge, Russell was accused of raping a woman in 1999 at a hotel during the Labor Party conference. This is the one where the woman invited him back to her hotel room after midnight and had him in her room. She says she went into the bathroom. She came out. His shirt was off. He was prancing around in just his, she claimed his underwear, but her picture shows he had his pants on. She says he got on top of her and that he then vaginally raped her without even taking her pants all the way off, that she had her shoes and socks and pants down at her ankles and that she was unable to breathe as he was on top of her. He claims it was completely consensual and that he asked her, he gave her his email and asked her to, told her he wanted her to meet his mother who was in town after the encounter. And the jury, we don't know the exact number, reasoning, but they did not find that she had been raped by Russell Brand. They appear to have believed that was a consensual encounter. Same. Then there was count 2A, which was the most absurd count of all attempted indecent assault, attempted indecent assault. He was found not guilty. This was a no-brainer. The charge was that in 2001, he was, he had attempted to indecently assault this complainant at MTV's offices in London, allegedly grabbing her arm and trying to drag her toward a toilet. All these years, that complainant has been saying, he grabbed me, he tried to pull me into a, into a bathroom for consensual sex. He wanted to have sex with me. And I wrestled away from him and said, it's a no. Now she watches the channel four documentary that, that word is being used in, in air quotes, um, and says, oh, you know, I was wrong. It was rape. He raped me. The jury, not rape. It was attempted rape. He tried to pull me in there for a rape. And the jury said, no, we don't believe that. So good for them because that was obvious bullshit. Count three. This is a third woman. Okay. Count three. And the next charge, count four relate to the same woman. And on one half of her complaint, he was found guilty. And on the other, he was not. The first half of her complaint is that she was sexually assaulted. He was found guilty on this count. He was accused of grabbing complainant three's breasts during a party at a bar in the London neighborhood of Soho in the summer of 2004. She alleged that he came in, he grabbed her. He came up to her. He grabbed her. I'm just going to play the testimony. This is the BBC giving the details of this piece of complainant three's testimony during direct exam. Um, the second piece of it is the oral rape, which the jury rejected, but listen to the setup here in SOT 209. We were also read a transcript from my body and they had sort of pleasant comments. The defense continued saying you didn't say anything to him at the bar. You didn't ask any friends if they saw him. Grab your breasts. You didn't kick off. And they had sort of pleasant conversation for about a minute. And then she said he leaned forward, put out both his hands and grabbed her breasts. She said this person who had just touched my breasts lent towards me, just both hands grabbing my breasts. Only one minute into the conversation we were having, she said she was reeling from the shock of him grabbing her breasts when he grabbed her arm and began to pull her towards the toilet. She couldn't quite remember that he'd taken his penis outside of his clothing and that he was grabbing the back of her neck and head and hair, trying to force her face down to his penis. She said to the jury, quote, he's holding on to my head and hair, quote, every time I tried to move away, he was strong and forcing me back. Then she described to the jury that he did force his penis inside her mouth. She said, quote, he wasn't very well endowed, quote, but there was a lot of pushing right to the back of my throat. She continued saying, if I do this, maybe he won't try and rape me further. Do what he says and then you are out of here. Complainant three also told the court that she closed her eyes and tried not to be there during the alleged oral rape. She said, quote, he wasn't very well endowed, but there was a lot of pushing saying, I couldn't even look at him. I was shaking. When asked how the alleged assault ended, she did say, quote, he did ejaculate in my mouth and it went down my throat. I remember trying to get rid of what was left. They rejected the second half of that, finding him not guilty of oral rape of this complainant. They did find him guilty of grabbing her breasts at the bar. You heard the BBC reporter there describing the second half of complainant three's allegations that after he grabbed her breasts, at the bar, he dragged her into a bathroom stall and forced himself orally upon her. She was cross-examined at length about this. Was it even physically possible given Russell Brand's six foot two height and the height of the complainant? And then the defense attorney for Russell Brand made the point that after this alleged sexual assault or rape, she got in a car with Russell, went to a second location after this horrific oral rape. She got into a car with him willingly. She went to a second location and they raised the point effectively of what woman who had just been orally raped would do that. The jury appears to have rejected the claim of oral rape, not appears to have, they did reject the claim of oral rape, but they believe that he fondled her breasts. So he's been found guilty of sexual assault for that on that complainant. Um, that was the first guilty that came down the sexual assault of count on account three, the fondling of this woman's breasts. Then we got to, uh, count five sexual assault. Again, he was found guilty of this. The prosecution said that in the summer of 2004 or 2005, Russell Brand sexually assaulted complainant four at choice FM radio station. Um, she, she talked about how he sloppily kissed her in front of witnesses who stood there and did nothing. And the jury appears to have bought this again, back to the BBC podcast, uh, on Russell brand. This is the, this is the description of complainant four's testimony. The woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by brand at this station, which the jury appears to have believed sat 212. They were inside a small room and came out into a smaller holding section when quote, he just leapt on me. They described how Russell brand lunged forwards and began to kiss them. They said, quote, it was a flash of lightning. They said he wasn't alone. There was a woman with long, dark hair with him and three other men. When they were asked to describe the kiss, they said it was frenzied. It was hard. It was very, very hard. I would say it was sloppy and it was wet. He was kissing all down my neck and his hands were all over me. He touched my bum, my breasts, my waist. He was pushing his body against me. And I was up against the wall. Again, they clarified it was rough and then said, quote, it was violent. At one point they said they were going to tell Russell brand and push him off and tell him to fuck off. At which point he lunged backwards and in a laughing way, went ha ha and looked at the other people who were around. Complaintant number four told the jury that not one of the other people, the women or the three men that they said were there stepped in or said anything during the time they alleged they were assaulted by Russell brand. Here's some of the cross examination of that witness. So you can get a fever. You can get a feel for the Russell brand defense against those charges. Sat 213. But the defense was off. How do you even know it was Russell brand? You didn't check with anybody. Who is it? You didn't say to somebody, this has just happened to me who can corroborate your account. And complaint number four said, I knew who it was because I watched him on big brother. They said, I watched him. I knew who it was immediately when it happened. I'm absolutely sure that it was Russell brand. The defense continued saying in one statement, you said that there were three men there and one woman in another statement, you said there were four men there and one woman and a complaint of force that I can't exactly remember what I gave the account saying there were four men there. I remember there being three men and one woman. I can't exactly remember what I gave the account saying there were four men and one woman. And the defense said, well, then that's corroborating witnesses. That's people who would have come forward and backed up what you had to say. In fact, wasn't one of them a member of staff at the place where you worked. And this is where complainant four really did get quite emotional. They were crying and having difficulty catching their breath saying, this man was mauling me and no one did anything. I looked at the woman. I was pleading with her, hoping she'd step in, but she didn't. That woman has gotten exactly what she wanted. He was found guilty of sexually assaulting her. Then there was count six, rape. Russell Brand has been found guilty. of anally raping Complainant 5 at his home in Hampstead in 2009. This was the most outlandish charge after Complainant 2, the attempted sexual assault that amounted to an arm grab, in which the evidence around Complainant 5 was, as I said at the top of the show, she was an ardent fan of Russell Brand. She was obsessed with him by her own testimony. She idolized him. And she was invited to go backstage to see and meet Russell after a show. As soon as she got into the dressing room, she and another woman started performing sex acts on Russell Brand. The other woman performed oral sex on Russell from the front. This woman basically gave him a different kind of sex from the back with her tongue. The big dispute? The big dispute at the trial was whether she went inside with the tongue or just stayed around the outside of Russell's backside. Forgive me, I know this is graphic. This is what it has come down to. Within 10 seconds of meeting him, then he invited her back to his house. He testified that they had been discussing anal sex, that it was something she was interested in, that it was something they were being playful about, they were flirting around about it. And she immediately, she went over there. Understanding that they were going to have sex. She had a boyfriend. She was cheating. She didn't care. She was obsessed with him. And she wanted this jury to believe that while she willingly gave it up vaginally, that he flipped her over and had sex with her anally. Her word was rape against her will. And that it was violent and it was upsetting and that she was saying no. And he was overruling her. Russell's testimony was she absolutely did not say no. She did consent. And they were both enjoying the naughtiness of it. He testified that after that encounter, they sat there watching television together, that this wasn't somebody who was acting as though she'd just been raped, nor was he acting as though he had just raped her, that they hung out for a while. They watched television. She claimed he got up immediately, walked out and said, look at the mess you've made. Now clean it up. There was a lot of testimony around this particular exchange. And there was, testimony about what the woman had allegedly said after the fact. There was a witness, her ex-boyfriend who testified that she resisted initially and then surrendered to it. And there was a question about whether that meant she had ultimately consented. The manager of Complaintant 5, she's, I don't know, some sort of an influencer, but like a coworker, said that the complainant did tell her that Russell, forgive me, up the ass and really hurt me. Now, this was another woman though, who didn't come forward until after she saw this so-called documentary and all those years prior had said nothing. And certainly nobody had made a police complaint about this. Russell's been found guilty of raping this woman. Finally, there was count seven sexual assault. He was found guilty on this count here. Russell was accused of sexually assaulting the complainant number six in 2009. She claimed that they were working together. That they were getting ready for a show or a performance by Russell and that he was allegedly saying he didn't want to go on. His team was saying he didn't want to go on without getting a massage. They asked her if she would give him a massage of his shoulders, that she did it. And that Russell basically put his face near her genitals and sniffed. And she felt violated and assaulted. And the jury has agreed that indeed is what happened. Now, what happened this morning inside, court was described as, you know, as I said, dead silence. His wife, Laura, was in court stealing herself against the verdicts. And of course, the first couple were not guilty. She apparently had to grab her chair and steady herself when they got to the third verdict, which was guilty. And then the guilties kept on coming. Russell Brand has been remanded into custody. The judge told him he is looking at a, quote, signature. Significant custodial term. He asked if he could be released on bond until Monday, which is when the sentencing comes down. His lawyer asked if on humanitarian grounds, he could be allowed to go home and say goodbye to his children. And the judge said no. The judge said with all due respect to his children, these are very serious crimes and he's got to go to jail right now. There'll be no saying goodbye. His wife, Laura, walked by herself without Russell out to a black car and got in, reportedly cried in court. You can only imagine what she's feeling right now. Russell reportedly remained stoic, was asked if he understood what the judge was saying and said, yes, my Lord, which is how you refer to the judges over there. And then was remanded into custody to female bailiffs taking him out of the courtroom. And he is probably in jail at this moment where he is going to jail. And he's going to jail. And he's going to stay at least until Monday when he will return for sentencing. My team is just telling me here, Sky News reporting that following the rejection of his bail application, as he was about to be led down to the cells, he mouthed, I'm okay. Several times to his lawyers, he also signaled an okay sign and a thumbs up multiple times. He repeatedly said the words, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. One can't help but wonder whether that's Russell trying to talk himself into it. There's no way he's actually okay. There's no way he's actually good. There was a situation outside the courtroom, which is rather extraordinary. According to reports that his main defense lawyer, they call them barristers over there. If they argue in court in winter, who did a very good job representing Russell cross-examining the women delivering a very compelling closing argument. The word used here is, quote, accosted a Sunday times journalist following the verdicts snarling. I don't know who wrote this up. This obviously is, uh, you've got some color that, that is opinionated. Um, quote, are you happy now? You fucked it to the Sunday times journalist, the journalist who was responsible for exposing brands alleged crimes in the 2023 dispatches documentary and times newspaper joint investigation was visibly shocked. Obviously, Ian winter genuinely believed that this whole thing was the fault of this documentary. That's a point he made on the cross examinations of the women. And it's a point he made in the closing argument that nobody ever conceived of these being sexual assaults or rapes. And no one ever said that prior to watching this so-called documentary, which was a theatrical performance with the scary music underlaid. Behind actresses portrayal of the women who had come forward to the journalists, not none of the actual women. I think number one actually participated in on-camera interviews. All the most serious charges were played by actresses, which is very dicey people. It's very dicey. I mean, you, you see that you see a professional actress who's trying to convince you that the testimonial is true. It's very different from seeing the actual alleged victim tell her story where all of our human instincts are designed to detect deception, uncertainty, even odd certainty about details that one might otherwise believe somebody would have a difficult time remembering. All of that is erased when you have a professional actress playing the role of victims, which was only disclosed in super small font on the screen. Here and there. So I understand their objection to this so-called documentary, which people thought involved the actual complainants so bravely telling their stories. That's not what happened. And every single one of his accusers here did admit that they were influenced by that documentary into coming forward. Russell's team said they were convinced into re-imagining what had happened to them. And now there is the question of how long, Russell Brand is going to spend in prison. I mean, you have to understand guys, this is like the UK's Joe Rogan. Russell Brand, of course, went on to marry Katie Perry around 2012, the biggest pop star in the world at the time. He became an actor. He starred in, you know, movies like, was it, was it Forgetting Sarah Marshall? But he, he became very, very famous in the UK. He wasn't when this all first started. The alleged crimes went from 1999 to 2009. And he was a very, very famous actor. And he was a at the beginning of that, he really wasn't well-known. He was doing standup routines. By the end of it, he was world famous. And certainly by today's measure, he is world famous. Having married Katie, having starred in movies, having starred in a very popular show over in the UK called Big Brother and other projects there. He's a household name. But as of late, Russell Brand has been most known as a conservative commentator, the size of Joe Rogan, like their biggest and best known. And he has become a very, very famous commentator. And he has become very conservative. He is, his politics are not like Joe Rogan's. I'd say he's closer to Tucker Carlson in most of his commentary, skeptical of government storylines, you could argue conspiratorial depending on your POV, more conservative, more Christian. His critics accused him of faking that after these women came forward and accused him of this misbehavior, that he faked becoming a Bible-reading Christian in order to manipulate the potential jury pool. There was an embarrassing moment when he made his book tour. He came by our show when he went on Piers Morgan, and Piers asked him what was in that Bible that he was carrying and what did he have flagged, and Russell struggled. He struggled to explain it and find it, and his critics thought that was evidence of his insincerity when it comes to his conversion. I will say I personally believe Russell actually did find God and found Christianity, and that moment on Piers Morgan was unfortunate, but it didn't cause me to doubt his conversion. And now there is the question of how long he will spend in jail, and I don't know the answer, but I'll tell you what the statutory guidelines are. First of all, it depends on how serious the judge thinks the circumstances around the cases are. The way it works is the judge is going to weigh two primary components. Culpability of Russell and harm to the alleged victims. The culpability, it's basically a two-pronged discussion. Category A would be, he's going to look at whether, was there a degree of planning? Was there the abuse of a position of trust? Was there the targeting of vulnerable victims? Or was there using alcohol or drugs to facilitate the offense? I think the answer is no. I think the answer to all of those is very clearly no. Abuse of a position of trust, you're talking about like you're somebody's teacher and you molest them, or you're somebody's doctor, that kind of thing. Targeting a vulnerable victim, that would mean somebody who's very young or possibly mentally unwell. None of that's been alleged here. Using alcohol or drugs to facilitate the offense, he's not accused of doing any of that, like slipping somebody a Mickey, that kind of thing, no. So I don't think he falls within category A, and I don't even think it's a category A. It's a degree of planning. There wasn't even alleged that there was a degree of planning on any of this. So I just don't think it's even arguable that he would be in the worst category. Category B is basically everybody else. So I think he's a cat B. On the question of harm to the victim, there are three categories. Number one is the most severe. Severe additional physical or psychological harm well beyond the nature of the act. That's just, that was not testified to. I just don't think that's relevant here. Category two is more serious, but not most severe. Serious physical or psychological harm. I just don't think that's there either. These women went on and led their lives and didn't even think it was rape for 20 years. This is just, they're not going to be able to meet that. So I think his behavior will fall into the lowest category of culpability, which is the base level. Category three, additional severe harm beyond the inherent nature of the offense is not explicitly established. I think that's him. So I think he's in the lowest category of culpability and harm. And what that means is if you look at the statutory guidelines on rape in the UK, if he's in category three B, the lowest is I think it's basically around the starting point is five years, but the standard range is four to seven, four to seven. So I, I think Russell could be looking at possibly four years on the rape count, which may sound low, but the reason it's so low is because of all the things I said. Now, having said that, they add bad points to your sentencing guideline. If there are multiple victims and here he's been found guilty of four rape or sexual assault assault charges. So that could be an exacerbating factor. If there are multiple victims, the judges in the UK may exceed the standard bracket of sentencing guidelines and issue sentences of up to 20 years or life in prison. Now, there's just no way Russell Brand is getting that. There's just no way he's getting life in prison. So, I mean, I think that's, that's, we can ignore that. But if he were, if I'm wrong about my analysis and he actually does somehow fall into category one A instead of three B on the culpability and harm analysis. Then the starting point would be 15 years and the standard range of sentencing would be 13 to 19 on that rape charge alone down on the sexual assault. As you would expect, the sentencing guidelines are lower. If you're in the worst category, which again, he's not, you would start at four and the standard range of sentencing would be three years to seven years. If you're down in category three B as he is, um, it looks like you might get the starting point. They call it high community order. I actually don't know what that is. I'm assuming it's community service. Um, and the standard range is, um, community order or medium community order to 26 weeks in prison. So what's that six months, six months in prison. So the sexual assault charges don't, they don't carry that heavy a charge. If in fact they think he's in the lowest category of culpability and harm. Yeah. And found guilty of three of them. So let's assume we're going to go for the lowest here of, or the, you know, three B, but the most severe penalty, which does include jail time up to 26 weeks. So that's again, six months, there's three women. Maybe you're looking at 18 months in prison for that. So you could be looking at four years plus 18 months, you know, five and a half year sentence. If he's lucky, that would be, if he's lucky, that would be three B across the board. I guess it could be even. Lower because sexual assault could carry just a high community order or medium community order. My team can look up for me, whether that's community service, I assume it is. So possibly he gets four years in prison plus community service on the sexual assaults. Best case. That's my read of the sentencing guidelines. I'm not a UK barrister, but I am a lawyer and I know how to read what the general terms are. That's where I think we'll start on Monday. When he returns to the courtroom and the news is even worse for Russell brand than that today, because as we came to air, it broke that Russell brand is actually now looking at two additional possible charges that there are two possible charges coming his way on women. Who did not participate in this trial. Hold on. I'm trying to find it on my, on my text chain with my producers, but this is, this is absolutely devastating. Russell brand has been accused of raping two more women, including a 16 year old school girl and could face further criminal charges. It was revealed in previous hearings at South work crown court. So we did not know. We did not know. That this had happened, but apparently it's already happened that he was accused of two additional counts of rape, including this 16 year old and that already the crown, which is the prosecution in the UK is threatening to bring two more criminal cases against him, two more criminal charges against him. And I don't know, but I believe the 16 year old is the young woman we discussed with Russell when he came into the studio. You guys remember this? When I watched the excerpts from that channel four documentary. When it first hit the one I was very angry about was the 16 year old. Russell was 30. She was half his age. She was reportedly being picked up by Russell's drivers and black cars in her school uniform and brought to him for sex acts. She had alleged things that were upsetting and violent. Like he spat in her mouth. He was, you know, diminishing, dismissive, abusive, and allegedly sexually assaulting her. Those were the allegations. Unproven and denied by Russell. He came on the show and I wrestled at the time with whether to have Russell on because I didn't know who Russell was. Is he the serial rapist or is he somebody whose politics changed and suddenly he was reimagined by these journalists as Bill Cosby when really he was just a promiscuous star who women may have had some regrets about sleeping with. Which happens all the time. One of the points that the defense was making in this case was he had this goal reportedly, allegedly, of sleeping with 5,000 women within a certain time frame. And they were saying, you know, he came pretty close. And of all those, you have three women who allege rape, three out of 5,000. Like what are the odds? If he's a serial rapist, wouldn't the numbers be a little higher than that? Wouldn't they be a lot higher than that? You know, if consent is not important to Russell Brand, where are the other women? He sought consent and got it in, you know, 4,900 and change cases. But these three, he had to force them. Does that make any sense to you? Was one of the points made by the defense counsel. But the 16-year-old was the one that really bothered me because that is legal. That was the age of consent at the time in the UK, okay? So you can't charge him with statutory rape on this young girl. But that is very young. My own daughter is 15 and a half. That is way too young to be having a relationship or an affair, a sexual relationship with a 30-year-old. But I did decide to have Russell on because I was curious about him. And I also believe in redemption and change. And I do believe, I genuinely believe sitting here today that Russell has changed his life. I believe he dearly loves his wife, Laura, his children. And that, as I said, I think he has found. And he's asked for forgiveness for a lifestyle that he completely rejects now. And he sees the dangers of, the debauchery of, the shame of. So he came here. I was totally charmed by him, I'm not going to lie, as I was when he came on my show at NBC. Utterly charming guy, sweet, interesting, funny. And I had a very difficult time believing that he was capable of rape, as I do right now. I don't believe these charges. I'm going to be honest, I don't. It's not for me to ultimately say. The jury's, it's the jury's call. But if you want to know my personal belief, I think this is exactly as his defense lawyer argued it was. But the 16-year-old was something Russell and I discussed. And we've pulled a little bit of that discussion. Here it is. Then came all the allegations, the sexual, alleged sexual assault and rape and so on. And it first came in this. UK, quote, documentary. And they use that term very loosely, there and here. And I'll tell you up front, I was angry when I saw that because they did it in such a compelling way that, especially the stuff about the 16-year-old, that I was angry with you. I believed what they said, or at least believed that there was enough smoke, there might be fire. And said to the audience at the time, you know, the conservative movement doesn't need somebody like that. Like, we love what he's saying about COVID. But if this is a guy who's sexually assaulting women and taking advantage of 16-year-olds, we need to move on without him. And felt that anger for a couple of years around you. Because I just thought it was so reckless and it was so wrong. And I knew that it might be false, but it seemed overwhelming, the way that they presented the evidence. And then the more I looked at it, the more I started to recognize I might not know the full story. Because since then, I have seen what the British government has done, what my own government has done to certain figures that it doesn't like. And I have an enormous amount of open-mindedness to you are being railroaded and attacked by people for reasons having nothing to do with actual facts, but with your right-leaning stance on certain issues, your growing prominence as a figure in a bunch of discussions that they find very threatening. And. Honestly, I just re-evaluated the whole thing and thought, I need to be open-minded to having been wrong in my initial assessments. And I'm interested in a conversation about it all. Thank you, Megan Kelly, for giving me the grace to address in particular your anger, which is entirely legitimate and recognizable. And the plain fact of it is, is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom where I'm from, the age of consent is 16. And I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30. But when I was 30, I was a very different person. I was a lot younger and I was an immature 30-year-old. Consensual sex, actually, with a variety of people, when there is a strong power differential, as there is when you're a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think involves exploitation. I think it is exploitative. I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish and I didn't. I did not apply enough consideration, barely any, I suppose, really, to how that sex was affecting other people. So you can hear he's obviously in a very different place mentally, emotionally, spiritually now. But if, in fact, he raped a 16-year-old, obviously he will have to be tried for that and pay if the jury concludes he did. That's a big if. I will tell you, the 16-year-old. whose pseudonym was Alice, did participate in that so-called documentary. She was one of the women who actually gave an interview, wasn't portrayed by an actress. They didn't show her face, but she did give a first-person interview. And here is part of that in Sat 225. He was like, so how many people have you had sex with? And I said, no one. Like, I've never had sex with anyone. And he got. an erection straight away. And he was like, oh, my God. He's like, my baby, my baby. And picked me up and cradled me in his arms like a child and was stroking my hair. Things took a slightly darker turn. I was sat up in the bed up against the headboard. And he forced his penis down my throat. And I couldn't breathe. It was just choking me. I was pushing him away, pushing him away. And he wasn't backing off at all. And so I ended up having to punch him really hard in the stomach to get him off. And then he, like, finally, then he, like, fell backwards. And I was crying. And he said, oh, I only want to see your mascara run anyway. There began my own anger toward Russell, which you heard me discuss with him on the show. Because you heard my preamble there. The reason I had that preamble is because what happened immediately in the UK after that so-called documentary hit was the English government, actual elected officials, started pushing to have him deplatformed, which he was. YouTube eliminated him and his income that he was getting, which was substantial. He had 6 million followers, I think, on YouTube. It was a government crackdown on him. And immediately, immediately, you're telling me if you had multiple women suddenly participate in a documentary, so-called, saying Tucker Carlson raped me, which would never happen because he's deeply in love with his wife and would never do such a thing. But I'm just saying, wouldn't your first thought go to this is political if there were a Democrat government in charge and if Democrat lawmakers, their first move was deplatform, take away his ability to speak? That's effectively what happened to Russell. So there was. And remains plenty of reason to be skeptical about the motives behind this prosecution and whether there's some sort of manipulation going on here. Here, for what it's worth, is the statement from the Crown Prosecution Service. Russell Brand was predatory and used his celebrity status to commit sexual crimes. He was a manipulator with an insatiable desire to get what he wanted, regardless of whether consent was given or not. As his career took off, he seized opportunities to assault the women around him. Although his. Tactics varied at the center of every assault was an abuse of power and sexual greed with a complete disregard for the impact of his actions. I would like to thank all the women in this case for their courage in coming forward and seeing the sexual abuser brought to justice. The senior Crown Prosecutor David Roberts. Interestingly, and oddly to me, at least, the Metropolitan Police also issued a statement not used to seeing the cops come forward with a statement. But the UK is the UK. It mirrored that one issued by the Crown Prosecution Service as well. Basically said this verdict is a testament to the extraordinary courage and determination of the women. Russell Brand used his influence, his status and his fame to exploit these women. As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement, they said. And as for his team, there will certainly be. An appeal. There is just there's no question. There's going to be an appeal and. We'll see. I mean, I do think it's very interesting that they convicted him on. The biggest jokes of the charges, like honestly, with all due respect, I just mean. I don't mean the woman's story is a joke. I just mean they were so clearly not. What the prosecution was claiming they were the one thing I said before this case went to the jury was there is no way they can find him guilty on complainant five. The alleged anal rape woman, the woman whose tongue was in Russell's rear end within 10 seconds of meeting him, please. And but suddenly this one was like, absolutely no to the backdoor action. I mean, please, who would believe that? So that they they agreed with. Fondling. Fondling a woman's breasts at a bar with multiple witnesses there having zero reaction to it. Come on. Come on. You know, sniffing a woman's groin area is a sexual assault. This is ridiculous what they're actually going to send him to prison for. So maybe that's some good news for Russell, that the two allegedly most troubling, the first one was the one that I was most troubled by, which was the complainant who said she'd been vaginally raped by him, that her pants never even got off of her body. That one seemed disturbing to me. And unlike these other women, like she wasn't this crazy, you know, googly-eyed fan of Russell's. She did invite him back to her house after midnight, or her hotel room, which I think was held against her. But in any event, that was the one I was most worried he'd be convicted on. The ones he actually got convicted on, to me, seemed like the most absurd, made-up ones. So now what will happen is on Monday, Russell Brand will be returned to the courtroom. And it will probably be the last time he will see his wife in person for a very, very long time, at least not without bars separating them. Their son and the heart operation that he had, you know, he's still struggling. And he will be divided from his father for who knows how long. I mean, this could go beyond. And clearly the prosecution hasn't extracted it. It's, you know, it's a cup of vengeance because we're looking at possibly two more crimes being charged against Russell. You know, I keep thinking of that clip that we showed you last week or two weeks ago when we first were covering this. This clip was given to us by someone who had begun a documentary on Russell. And apparently it never went anywhere. Right. This was given to us back in April before Russell came on. And it was something I was going to show him and discuss with him. It just, we ran out of time. We were talking about so many different things. But it's, it shows you some of the behind the scenes of Russell and his wife and their child. And let me tell you something. That family's been through a lot. Laura Brand gave testimony. And she was extremely sympathetic. Even the judge had to admit that. Even the prosecution had to admit that. That this woman got up there, talked about their relationship, which they began right before this whole time frame. They broke up. She said they stayed in touch all this time. The prosecution tried to paint her as completely out of touch. And she didn't know him when he was this rabid, like shark eyed demon who would like flip a switch and turn into this serial angry rapist. She tried to tell them that's not true. She actually did stay in close. Touch with Russell. She knew exactly who he was and that he wasn't that person. Now they got back together. She talked about how when they first were together, he wasn't faithful to her. But then things changed and they found each other again. He married her. He's been baptized. He's found God. If you look at any of their social media, and I mean for years now, these two are, you know, spiritual. They are a little woo woo. They are madly. They are madly in love with each other. They've formed a family. He's very devoted to. And I do believe he's changed his life. They tried to make this case. Look. If you find he he raped women prior to all that, he's still going to go to jail. That's what happened today. But I watched this piece and thought, is this man capable of what they what they say? Let me air it again. And you tell me. Tune in right now to Watch Real. I think about the difficulties that we've been through and I sort of think like, gosh, you know, I don't really often talk about it with people. I do. You know, we talk about it. We we have been experiencing more than one difficulty at a time. You know, we have a son who has a serious heart condition. Good morning. Hello, darling. Who in October 2023 had open heart surgery. I found out that he was going to need that surgery imminently two days after the media, you know, explosion. I had to go to the hospital, you know, head down in the car with a 10 week old baby. Russell was allowed to visit under the cover. The cover of darkness, taking a break for a moment from all the media coverage and in the newspaper articles and the feeling of 20 people outside our home. The break from that was the bedside of our child in intensive care. It's like being shown this is not real. This was never real. Look what you gave your life to. You gave your life to being famous, screwing around, being an idiot. And what's that sort of. Extraordinary when all this. So I guess we got to let him come. Come on in. This is Herbie. He's all right now. What's up? Go on then. Hello. Oh, there we go. We're all supposed to say that we don't regret anything because all the experiences, even the worst experiences of our life are contributors to the person that we've subscribed to. And I think that's what we've subsequently become. But. But I feel like, oh, my God, I spent like 20 years just screwing around like an idiot. It's untrue. A lie has been told. A lie has been told. A deception. He raped me. If I was to think too much about doing this on my own. That's too painful. I don't want to do it on my own. So I hope the system isn't as bad as we all think it is. Oh, oh, oh. Hmm. They have three kids, two daughters, a son, ten, eight and three. Can only imagine what they're going through this morning. Um, we will stay tuned. We will bring you more as we learn what the defense plan is and certainly what the sentence is, which we will learn on Monday. We are back with our regularly scheduled Megyn Kelly show shortly. Thanks for joining us.