Everything You Need To Know About What's REALLY Happening at Russell Brand's UK Trial, with Mark Eiglarsh, Matt Murphy, and Viva Frei | Ep. 1425

Welcome to the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every week day at Neast. Hey, everyone on Megan Kelly, welcome to the Megan Kelly show. We need to give you an update on this trial that's happening over in the UK. Russell Brands trial, it's nearing the end of its second week. He's 51 years old. He's a British comedian. He's an actor. Now, political commentator, he and he's facing seven charges brought by six women, six women have accused him. Not one of whom was featured in that documentary, okay? Remember that documentary came out a couple years ago on Channel 4 and Great Britain with women accusing him of terrible sexual assaults and so on. Well, not one of those is involved in this. So this is a different six women. And the charges against him range like there's one who claims he grabbed her arm and tried to grab pull her into a bathroom and she got away from him. Nothing happened. Like that's one of the felony counts against him. So there's some that are like what? And then there are two that alleged rape, technically there are three counts of rape, but there are two that are deadly serious. So three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, one count of indecent assault stemming from alleged incidents 20 to 30 years ago, all right, it's from 1999 through 2009. And this is like a serious problem. Like, if somebody came to you today and you had to defend yourself on an alleged incident that happened 30 years ago, how well do you think you do? Honestly, I don't have a good memory for events in my personal life that far in the past. If I talk to somebody, like I have an old dear friend from high school who's got a memory like a steel trap, she'll be telling me a story about something we did. And I'll be like, then what did I do? It's like hearing it for the first time. I don't know if any of you can relate, but it's like, I have no independent memory of what she's telling me. And I know it's true. And she says it then becomes vaguely familiar, but I could never. So God forbid somebody wherever to accuse me of doing something 30 years ago. I think I know generally I haven't committed crimes, I haven't willfully violated laws. But this is an impossible situation to put somebody in. Now these allegations are very, very vivid and just disturbing so you can make the argument he should remember. But really, his defense to these is that these were sexual interludes and I had thousands of them. So everything I did, and he set this to me right here on this set when he came for his interview here with me. I did have a lot of sex, I was known as like, Shagger of the Year, a couple of years in the UK. His womanizing was kind of epic, but never, never, non consensual. Never did I have to or try to or succeed in forcing myself on a woman against her will. Say again, Deb, we have a set, that's that. Yeah. Okay, let's watch it. And what fame gave me and what my addiction fueled was an opportunity for endless consent, which led me to be a hedonist and a fool and an explorer of women. And that is wrong. And that is something that needs to be redeemed and addressed and a tone for what I'm obviously not only querying, but violently or aggressively or assertively opposing is the idea that this is a judicial criminal matter where consent was overridden. Okay. So the way it works in the UK is, we considered going over there and covering this trial, but we decided not to when we found out that if you sit in the courtroom as a journalist, you then are relegated to on the evening newscast, only reporting what you heard in the courtroom. You're not allowed to do any independent legal analysis, which is crazy. I mean, for somebody like me, that defeats the point. I'm not, I'm not going to do this story, just presenting testimonials. I'm going to try to contextualize it for you guys and we need to talk about it. So we have been listening to multiple podcasts and reading multiple reports about what's happening in that courtroom right now. The prosecution is still presenting its case with its witnesses. So all we've heard of Russell's defense is the cross examinations of these witnesses. The defense case is not yet in progress. So keep that in mind and know that he vigorously denies all of these charges. And we will get to some of the cross examinations, but joining me is Viva Fry. He's Rumble creator and former litigator, along with Mark Eiglar, she's co-host of Positively Legal and Matt Murphy, co-host of In the Well, both are available on the MK True Crime podcast channel and on our YouTube channel as well. Guys, great to see you. Let me just start with a broad, broad-based question because I know you guys have boned up on what's being said inside that courtroom and the female testimonials and ask you how you think it's going. Matt, I'll start with you. Well, for one thing, Megan, it's kind of bizarre. You just hit on it. There's no first amendment in the UK, which means there's these very strict limitations on what can be reported. And I know Mark has probably been thinking the same thing I have. I would love to see these women testifies that I can get a read on what's going on and we just can't do that. And Megan, you talked about-- They're behind the drape. Right. And you talked about the limitations on media. It goes beyond even what you mentioned. If you're reporting on it and you go to that courtroom, you then also fall under the jurisdiction of that court. And you can be held to account criminally. They call it-- it's like Jigsaw Reconstruction. I'm not getting the exact terms right, but the sexual assault victims, or alleged sexual assault victims in the UK have a right to lifetime anonymity. I'm totally supportive of that. But it strictly limits journalists in the way they are allowed to report things so that people can't put pieces together and identify them like we just saw with that hold out juror in the Lindsey Glancy case. So it is really tough to get a beat on this. Another thing that's interesting-- Mark-- I was really excited when I heard you're on the show because I wanted to get your take on this. Just the idea that a criminal defendant sits in what they call the doc. They don't get to sit next to their lawyer, Megan. So like when people are testifying, there's no communication. He has to sit there and some of the courtroom renderings make him look like a little kid. It's-- I'm really glad that we-- we've refined our judicial system from the old common law because I really think we do it much better in a lot of ways. Yeah. We fled over here to America and decided to make some serious changes in the way the English judicial system was working. And it's called Jigsaw Identification, and basically what they're trying to get at is they don't want like ABC saying, well, she worked a channel for between the years of 2005 and 2010. And then NBC reporting, we know she was a producer at a major channel. And then somebody else reporting. And we know that she worked on Dan Rather's show, you know what I mean? Where the news organization is collectively released enough details that ultimately the viewer has her identification. But to me that I disagree with you, I've been on a tear about this. I disagree on protecting the identities of alleged rape and sexual assault victims with all due respect to those who genuinely are because it's just some of these claims are false, and I think protecting the identity infantilizes women and keeps the stigma around this crime on the woman. The stigma is the man's and the man's alone. If he's done this to her, there is no shame in being a rape victim. There is no shame in being a rape victim. And I feel like the system is set up to reinforce the notion that there is. And the other problem with it is keeping this lifetime anonymity. Not about all of the men who might be in an accuser's life who say, she did this to me. She did this to me. She did this to me too. I broke up with her and then she brought a false claim against me. None of those guys, if that's a backstory of any one of these six accusers or five and six charges, I'm losing my numbers, none of that backstory would be known because the names are unknowable. They're nowhere. The British public doesn't know. The American public doesn't know. It's not all over social media. So if one of these women is a serial fabulous when it comes to prior accusations, we will not find out because there's such blanket protection of even their names. It's very unfair. Go ahead, Eichler. She your thoughts on any of that. A lot. Okay. First, what Matt talked about. I didn't know that they separated the defendants from the attorneys. That would be great for me because I'd get a lot of exercise. I would literally be walking constantly to show the judge how ridiculous you would do it too. Come back and forth. Oh, wait. She said what? And I'd get up and it would be distracting for the jurors and they would learn that's probably not a good idea to keep me away from a guy who's facing decades in prison who I need to get feedback on. But you would look to you in the wig, Mark. Oh my goodness. I can't imagine ever. It'd be colorful. I'd maybe do purple. All right. Two, strike against him unlike the jurors here. They don't have to be unanimous over there. So two can find that this is absolute horseshit, completely made up, snow white innocent frame like the Mona Lisa. But as long as ten say he's guilty, he's going away. Okay. So that's another problem. And then the third thing that's a problem is there is no protection of defendants who refuse to take the witness stand here. Not in any way, hold it against them if they do so. There, no, they can. There's an inference. So now, I expect him knowing that they're going to judge him negatively. He's going to likely then have to take the witness stand. Imagine a guy who self-proclaimed, he's an addict, right? And in 1999, probably high as a kite has to now remember some encounter. It's impossible. All he could do is just generically say, I don't know, I never forced anybody, right? But this girl is getting into the weeds. This is the most significant thing in her life. Who's going to look more credible and believable? Mm-hmm. Yes, I know. The whole system is so stacked against the defendant. And I remember saying to Russell, when he was sitting right here, Russell, I'm worried about you. I think you might be going to jail. He said, I don't want to. It was a funny moment, but that was when we were in the safety of the freedom of Connecticut and now I'm watching this trial, thinking he's in a lot of trouble. The sheer volume, Megan. The sheer volume. Volume. Volume. After a while, how many women are lying is the jury's going to say, over and over again, numerous six different women telling detailed graphic stories. It is unless his lawyer is like David Copperfield to make all this disappear, you know, they got a problem. Mm-hmm. What have you made of it so far, Vivek, because they are cross-examining the women. And the general theme of the cross-examinations has been, you were there consensually. In some of the cases, you were obsessed with Russell Brandt. There are text messages showing you said you loved him. You know, you wanted this and you may have not really felt good about it after the fact, but you never alleged rape until you saw that channel for documentary and then you decided to put on your Me Too cape and come forward. That's the general theme, mine, more particular, but that's a general theme of the cross-examination. I'll preface this by saying, first of all, that England or the United Kingdom is no longer a place of Western values where you can expect fair judicial hearings. It's a country as far as I'm concerned that you have to avoid visiting and if you can avoid living in it as well. So this entire process, unfair is an understatement. When you're facing anonymous victims, there's no statute limitations on some of these charges. So you're dealing with things that are 25, 30 years old. And I say this, you know, whether they are legitimate or not, at some point in time, a sufficient passage of time has occurred that justice for the victim or for the accused is impossible. And so, you know, the absence of a statute of limitations, you can bring these up whenever you want, anonymously, three decades later, it makes for injustice one way or the other. And at some point in time, victims, I don't think they should be allowed to remain anonymous either for obvious reasons. They have to make these claims within a reasonable, just period of time, which they haven't. The idea that you're going to protect the identity of rape victims, but if you get physically assaulted with grotesque violence, not only are you not protected as a victim, the video is probably circulating online for people to gawk at. It's a disparate treatment of crime. Crime is crime violence as violence. And it comes to Russell. He is in big trouble. I remember reading his book before any of these charges occurred, I think it was my bookie book. And I'm like, I'm reading this book. I was like, okay, I appreciate he wanted vind, not vindication, but absolution. He, I think it's why he turned to God became religious, whether or not you, you know, people can question the sincerity. He wanted to purify his soul for the things that he did in the past that he feels bad about putting it in a book. It's fine, you know, it's, it's brave and stunning when the leftists like you and then it's evidence when they don't like you. So he said it, you know, in that book in and of itself, the, the difference between rape and regret is a question of perspective and a question of memory. When you have some of the cross examination of these victims saying, uh, I felt used, I felt treat like a piece of meat, you know, some people are going to say, oh, that's rape. Others are going to say you, you felt used because you might have been, but being used is not rape, uh, forced sex is rape. And so it's just, it's an impossible situation. It doesn't look good for Russell. And I say, it doesn't look good for Russell because of his own confessions for his own absolution in his own autobiography. And undoubtedly, I think he's going to have to take this stand because even if he doesn't, his testimony is out there by way of his books. I'll tell you the one that I think is the most problematic. Okay. So it's six women, seven charges. And three of them are alleging rape. One vaginal rape, forgive me, I should have given him a disclaimer that there's going to be very graphic talk and it's about alleged rape and sexual assault. But one alleges a vaginal rape, one alleges an oral rape, one alleges an anal rape. And then there are three other women who allege other comparatively more minor incidents. The one who is alleging a vaginal rape to me is the most problematic one for Russell. Because the other women, there, there are some potentially good facts to cross them on. But the one who's alleging the anal rape, who's the last victim to have testified alleged victim is the one who their text message is saying she was obsessed with him. She loved him. She willingly went backstage at one of his events and give him a blowjob like that night. You know, like was happy to do it was thrilled even though she didn't want to have vaginal sex with him. She testified because she had a boyfriend. But then went back to his house on another day and knew that they'd be having sex and wanted to have sex. And then he flipped her over and came at her inally and she says that was a rape. But the cross examination brought out all these facts about how I don't really want to get this graphic. But let's just say she had done something to him in the back door and they'd been talking about it. And so he was, they were setting it up to be like, you make him sound like on direct like he's just this animal who David to you in this way you hadn't consented to. But the two of you had been dancing around it and you'd been doing something to him and you know flirting about this possibility and then he did it. And it happened quickly and it was kind of over and you didn't allege rape. And so I was like, okay, it's a terribly graphic incident and so on. I'm just setting up why I think the first allegation is the most troublesome for him. Because this was a woman whom he met at an event before he was really famous. They were chatting. They were hitting it off. She said she was very young in naive and wanted to go continue the conversation at a bar. But she did. But she didn't want to go to a bar. I guess she wasn't much of a drinker or something. And she invited him back to her apartment, which, okay, I mean, I get how you could make a hay out of that if your Russell's lawyer like you knew it was going to happen when you invited him back to your apartment. But there's that's completely defensible just because I invite a man back to my apartment does not mean I have to do all the sex acts that he then wants to do with me. And that testimonial was graphic about what happened. Here's some of the BBC's podcast giving details on complainant one on what allegedly happened to her in sat 30. She alleges that once he pushed her, she ended up on the bed with him on top of her straddling her. And she said, what are you doing? And he responds, saying, no, it's fine. It's normal. And she says, what are you doing? No, stop. No. That was her testimony to the police during that video recorded interview that she said, no, stop, no, out loud. She then described Russell brand taking down her trousers and her underwear. She said her top stayed on, but he pulled down her trousers and her underwear. He didn't take it off her body. She clarified that her feet remained inside of her trousers and that she still had her shoes on. She then says, quote, he put himself in without thinking how it would hurt me, quote, he just wanted to ejaculate. She believes it lasted longer than five minutes because she could feel the weight of his body on top of her, crushing her and making it difficult for her to breathe. And she also said, what was going through her head was quote, just don't kiss me, don't kiss me. I didn't want his mouth anywhere near me. He was doing quote, lizard like things with his tongue. It was disgusting. He tried to put his fingers in my mouth. She continues saying, I remember thinking I wish it would stop. I would have said get off me, know it hurts. I completely close my eyes. Okay. So the image of the woman not even getting her pants off is, that stays with you. You know, it's like that, that to me is what a rape would look like. There would not be any ceremonial unroaming and so on. But so the lawyer's got up to try to cross examine her. She didn't come forward. She didn't alleged rape until the channel for documentary. And they tried to cross examine her on in that statement allegedly not telling the investigators at that time that she ever said no to Russell brand, which would be a damning fact. You know, if she, like men cannot just glean what's in our heads. Like we need to say no or shove them off of, like in some way you need to communicate, no, in order to convince a jury that this was rape because the man has a defense of reasonable belief of consent. Russell brand has that defense available to him. It's an element of the law in Great Britain. If he had a reasonable belief of consent, he can get out of this. So something needs to have been done to tell him no in some way, shape or form. And so the defense was cross examining her on what she said in her initial statement. And the judge intervened with a save for the witness. Here it is in 332 being described again by this podcast. Winter said you didn't struggle when he was on top of you. You didn't struggle during what you say is an alleged vaginal rape. And complainant once says he was really heavy, I felt like I was being crushed like I couldn't breath. Winter said you didn't say no. Complinent one said I did say no. Winter said in your video recorded interview you said you said no in your head but you didn't say it out loud and complainant one said I said it I said it. Winter said moved on and said he asked you while this alleged vaginal rape was taking place if you were enjoying it and you didn't say no. The judge came in and said actually you've asked a question that implies that in her video recorded interview she only says or mix reference to saying no in her head but that's not true because she does say that she said it out loud and and Winter said I'm conducting a cross examination here it's the victim that answers and the judge said shush I'm the judge you have to let me speak and it sounds like you're putting a question to her that is not reflective or accurately reflective of what she said in the video recorded interview. Megan let me in on this one yeah get me in on this one yeah you go okay you're keeping on me Mark I got so much to say on that okay first and foremost that judge doesn't understand his role okay the only one that jurors trust as much as Matt Murphy is always a trustworthy kind of guy they know he represents the people but he wants a conviction the defense lawyers they want to acquit their clients doesn't matter what the evidence is the only one they trust and cherish the guy who gives him the pizza during breaks the guy who controls their life during this trial is the elevated one wearing the black polyester when he makes his position clear and boy did he do so he is in favor of the victim he didn't say it but that's exactly what's implied objectivity goes out the window fairness goes out the window that judge I think commits error by doing what he did and I would be absolutely outraged I would move for a mistrial and acidity recuse himself and I think that that's probably the worst moment in this trial for Russell yes go ahead or Matt here I'll give you I'll give you one other event involving the judge just to keep it moving forward and you can comment on both of them here is sought 31 back to the BBC describing what happened in court he said you said he was wearing briefs budgie smugglers so very very tight underwear but in the pictures that we have that are in evidence that you took that you say Russell brand asked you to take he's wearing white trousers he's not in budgie smugglers but you said that he was when you took the pictures and and complain at ron response saying I don't have an exact recollection in the order of what he was wearing at what time I thought I took pictures of him in the budgie smugglers because I was just repeatedly clicking the camera and it's one of those cameras that you have to wind up and I wasn't winding it and then winter questions well when you came out of the bathroom and you saw that he'd taken his top off you could have gone back in you could have tried to leave the hotel room but you didn't do either of those things and then complain at one got very emotional she was crying and finding it difficult to finish her answers but she said quote I can categorically tell you I did not find that man attractive I thought he was gay and she continued crying the judge said you know we can pause we can stop by the way she did not take the pause she said it's not going to get any better and she kept going but you know I I don't know when somebody's upset sometimes they'll say let's take a pause I think it's usually the cross-examining attorney who would say let's take a pause not the judge to step in and stop your flow as a man's freedom hangs in the balance but your thoughts. Okay first of all let me just preface it this is the judge by the way it's such a crazy way yeah I don't even know what to say give me a minute here to to address a couple things number one I prosecute these cases I prosecute these in California I've also represented women who've come forward in similar cases pro bono okay so this this is the world I know everything March has said about the judges comments were a hundred percent spot on and I'll go further than that you're at a critical point for the fairness of a criminal defendant in cross examination and so the audience understands what this woman testified to was she invites Russell Bram back to her hotel room she comes out and he's basically already in her in his budget smuggler's budget is a bird so basically like tidy whiteies which paints quite an image right she comes out of a bathroom naive girl and he's there in his underwear those photos contradict what she said and and and and what she told police according to the evidence that we have is that in my mind I was saying no the law back then they've changed the law in in the UK regarding general versus specific intent for sex crimes in 2004 they changed their law to make it a general intent crime in other words what a reasonable person in Russell Brant's position see as consent back then during the time of this incident it took a specific intent or he had to know that he was that he was proceeding without consent okay so a little bit in the weeds there but it is hugely significant so his defense lawyer has this woman up against the ropes with two significant inconsistencies and at that point the judge weighs in clearly on the side of the victim and that bringing us full circle to the first amendment that is why in the US we have to have open courtrooms because the reason why we have public trials in the US is to ensure that criminal defendants are not getting railroad that you have fairness at every point the judge weighing in just like Mark says the jury bonds like little ducklings to every judge and every criminal trial that that is announcing a position that is completely biased that is anathema to everything that the American criminal justice system stands for it is an outrageous thing I think Mark still would be objecting knowing Mark and I would too but look it goes beyond that Meghan Mark will be ripping that wig right off that guy's head no listen let me tell you another thing the the event that they were at was a thing for the label labor party in the UK the labor party is is the is basically the the UK's Democrats they're very very left-wing okay they're she was at a political event and this is the specter that is kind of haunting this whole trial which is really disturbing for the audience Russell brand was kind of like I almost a communist leaning kind of guy at the beginning of his of his career and he's evolved over the course of his life and he is now leaning right and he's he's really conservative he he got sober he got married he's got two little daughters he became like I would describe him as a libertarian but he is a right leaning guy now okay the the the the documentary that brought all these women forward was called Russell brand in plain sight and it was produced by channel four channel four is basically their CNN if you remember there's a famous interview with Jordan Peterson that a lot of people will remember with the woman named Kathy Newman where she is going after him she is hard left she is one of the reporters on channel four news so there's this specter that why didn't any of these women come forward back in the day and none of them did not there were no police reports there were no rape kits there was no investigation at the time they all came forward after this documentary came out and it aired on channel four which has been accused over and over again of left wing bias so a lot of people complained about that there are hundreds of complaints to to the to the station how they treated Russell brand unfairly so like everything else in our modern world Megan there is a political thing Viva touched on this but it is really disturbing and then you come that you got a judge weighing in essentially telling the jury at a critical time right when this woman is up against the ropes that she is to be believed and it's it strikes me as fundamentally unfair I agree completely with mark it is really disturbing to me and none of us has seen the transcript of her interview with police in which she first made these allegations after the channel for documentary so we actually don't know what's true I'm going to believe that the cross-examiner winter would not have posited you didn't say that in your interview with the police unless he had a good faith basis because she began to answer well he was on top of me and I was struggling to breathe she began to to excuse why she didn't say no more explicitly when the judge stepped in to throw her lifeline saying oh you did you did say that you had said no in your interview which is just such an egregious blocking of the cross-examination and the defense's momentum in getting her to the place they needed to get her which is obviously to make the case Viva that she needed to say no she needed to communicate no in some way shape or form to Russell brand and she didn't and so that this was really something she consented to and then probably didn't feel great about or felt fine about but years later when Russell brand went in her eyes hard hard right decided she would cause some trouble some trouble for him and maybe she didn't remember it so finally and thought I'm on the side of the angels either way it is I mean it goes back to the difference between rape and regret and if you engage in a 30 20 some odd years ago and something for which you feel deeply ashamed deeply exploited and it's not that difficult to retroactively transform those memories from you know it was a terrible thing that I did to I was actually a victim of you know of rape and the problem is however it's it's impossible to even determine this 25 years later and you know the argument that the cross-examination I don't like it say why didn't you lock yourself in the bathroom why didn't you say no more vociferously I at some point you know I don't know the degree to which you know barring a fight is as if to say like the only rape that will be demonstrable is where you get physically beaten into submission as opposed to pressured into silence, but when it comes to a lot of these accounts, and the woman who claims anal rape after consensual vaginal sex, and then they're asking her, you went to the doctor two weeks later, but it wasn't for the rape issue, it was for the STI, a sexually transmitted infection concerns. I mean, if that's your recollection of the experience, it's not gonna be very hard to justify it to yourself as being raped 20 years down the line, because it was, in fact, a deeply exploitive, a deeply, you know, objectifying of a person experience, it's not that hard. And then you get, you know, you get all of the sympathy that goes along for being a victim of rape as opposed to someone who engaged in dirty sex with a man who's a known nympho for lack of a better word. It's just, it goes along with the fact that too many years have passed for anybody to know what happened in any event, but, you know, it's just done the truth. You know, it's, it's, it gets down to me to the reality of it may be unfortunate that you effectively have to go to the police right after. You've been raped or sexual assaulted to reasonably anticipate justice in your case, but it is a fact that you, you have to go to the police in time. You have to go to the police when it happens. This is too difficult a task to 30 years later, reasonably adjudicate whether an event happened like, it's an impossible position to place the man in. That's generally why we have statutes of limitation. I guess that's not an issue over there. The only reason EG and Carol got to bring these claims against Donald Trump 30 years after the fact is because New York State passed a law with her in mind to reopen for one year the ability of alleged sexual assault victims to bring cases against their perpetrators in the wake of the Me Too movement, but it was reportedly designed to facilitate EG and Carol's case against Trump. It's like, isn't an impossible position. Same as Brett Kavanaugh. Maybe, and I got you to know. Just unlike the rest of us, he's like this meticulous note-taker who just happened to have daytime diaries of everything he was doing at the time. Otherwise, he too would have been more, even more condemned to the Court of Public Opinion. Go ahead. Okay, so while we focused a lot on the process, my opinion still remains that there are challenges with that process and how the law works there, but when Viva was saying it's regret and not rape, I don't know if he knows firsthand what really happened, and so I think it's important to say while, yes, ideally, rape victims should come forward right away. It doesn't always work that way. And there are reasons why people delay for many, many reasons. It doesn't mean they're not telling the truth. I don't know whether all six of these women- - 30 years, rangers, a criminal. - But please be open to the idea and have Viva as well, can see that it's possible that his addiction to heroin turned to sexual addiction and that he took from these people what they weren't willing to consent to. That is a possibility as well, factually. - I understand that. I do. I'm talking about the challenges in actually making a criminal case- - I agree. - And the fairness issues toward the defendant. I don't know what happened. I don't know whether these women consented or didn't, or what happened in those rooms. So, all right, stand by 'cause we actually have the testimonials thanks to the BBC podcast host, which is a good podcast. I mean, I recommend this woman, I'd say her name, it is very hard to pronounce. But they've been doing a good job. We have the testimonials about what happened in each of these cases, including that most disturbing one that you guys are describing. We'll get to that and we'll get to what seemed to me like utter nonsense allegations right after this quick break. Don't go away. (upbeat music) Back now with our panel. Okay, so that we give the BBC proper credit. The name of the podcast is Fame Under Fire, Russell Brand on Fire. And the host is Anushka Mutanda Doherty. Okay, so skipping ahead to the final complainant who alleges the anal rape incident. This is somebody who was allegedly obsessed with Russell Brand, who went backstage with him the first night she was at an event of his and knowingly went back there to perform a sex act on him, even though she had a boyfriend. She gave him oral sex. And then he followed up, she came over, he wound up doing, you know, she thought she was gonna have vaginal sex with him and he flipped her over and there was anal sex which she claims was a rape. Here is our friend Anushka speaking about her allegations in Sub 42. Now complainant number five said they then went into the bedroom that she was wearing no underwear 'cause she just got out of the shower and they engaged in consensual sex, vaginal, penetrative sex. But that ultimately complainant number five alleges Russell Brand penetrated her anally. She wasn't aware this was going to happen. She said when it happened she couldn't speak or breathe because of the pain, but after a while first quietly and then louder she told him no. And then later on in her interview, she said she was begging him to stop. But that in response, he said quote, "I want you to feel my come." And it was at that point complainant five alleges that they realized he had removed the condom and that he ultimately ejaculated inside her. They alleged that actually Russell Brand responded, saying you need to clean up the mess you have made just drink to the bed where there was both blood and excrement on the duvet cover. - That's a problem again. - Obviously. - That's a problem. - Yeah, that's not good. - I thought that's the one you're taking as the worst one because the graphic detail that he provides is extraordinary. - Yes, but unlike the first, the first complainant doesn't have the idolization of Russell Brand did not willingly give him a blow job, did not willingly give him vaginal sex and were only arguing about whether he should have flipped her over. That's this woman's story. The first woman says the only thing I did to put myself in potential danger was invite him back to my place. I thought we were talking and I thought he was gay. That was her testimony. She was very firm when they tried to like move her off of that. She was like, I did not think I was taking a sexual or safety risk at all. I thought he was gay. I was not attracted to him. I thought we were going to talk. And his lawyers had a tough time shaking witness number one who only got the pants down to the ankles. She says he got her pants down to the ankles. This one is more problematic, including because there was a text message. The prosecution told the jury that this complainant in this anal incident did see Russell Brand again at a work event and that he texted her. And she responded saying, why are you texting me? To which he replied saying, because you are dirty and I wanted to push you further. So he's engaging in sort of what he thinks is playful sex talk with her. And she responded with, I think you pushed me far enough. You treated me like an animal to which he responded, sorry. So that, the cross examination, the defense lawyers are basically saying, you did not say you raped me. You did not go to the police and say he raped me. You were angry about the way he was with you, rough. And then he walked right out after it happened, which appears to be a pattern with these women. And so they're basically saying he may have been a cad. He may not have been the most gentle lover, but you were not, you were not alleging rape even to him after the fact. And here is some of the cross examination. This is graphic too, forgive me, but it's important, stop 44. They clarified with complainant number five. You said you gave him oral sex. This was consensual and the complainant five said, yes, I did. You said that he fingered you and this was consensual. Yes, I said that. That's what complainant five said. Isn't it true? The defense asked that he gave you oral sex from behind. Completed number five said they did not remember that happening. The defense continued saying, isn't it true? You had a conversation where you'd said you'd never had anal. And he responded saying he'd like to and wanted to do so. Then he liked anal and wanted to do so. And what he would really like, really want to do is remove the condom and go inside your anus. And they were very firm in saying, no, that conversation never took place. The defense asked a similar question to one that they had began with saying, I'm putting to you that you were young and impressionable and obsessed. And you agreed to do stuff you wouldn't normally agree to. And the complainant responded saying, no, I did not consent. No, I did not consent to what happened to me. Matt, we appear to be getting a preview of what we might hear if Russell Brand winds up taking the stand. Yeah, and remember the this specific intent that's required changed. So you've got in 2003 into 2004, it actually passed in May of 2004. But I think he has to testify. I think that he probably would have anyway. But like Mark said, again, it's so bizarre watching this, Megan, because you do, you absolutely as a juror can consider somebody's silence if they don't, which again, is completely foreign to American lawyers. So yeah, I think we're going to get that. And I think that we're going to see something very similar to what he talked about with you. He's going to say that I was wild. But I subjectively believe that these people were consenting. And under UK law, that might be enough for some of these. Some of the other counts when he does appear to have a specific memory of this woman, because the defense lawyer didn't get those details out of the ether. Clearly, he got them from Russell Brand, who is ready to testify or at least it appears that there was a lot of talk about the back door prior to him allegedly doing this to her. And I mean, I must say like the whole thing is so gross. And I do wonder what effect that's going to have in the jury hearing these really intimate details about excrement on the sheets. She testified. He rudely said, like, clean up your mess. And then the cross was basically, no, it was a bodyguard or a third party who came into the room afterward and said, clean it up. So as somebody treating her rudely other than Russell, anyway, go ahead, Matt. No, that's another bizarre thing about the UK system. We have vor dire here in the United States where the lawyers actually get to stand up and ask questions of the jurors. It is so limited in the UK, basically the vor dire consists of, have you, yeah, have you, the judge asked them, have you had any, have you, were you exposed to any of the media in this? And it doesn't look like they, there's a whole lot of additional inquiry. It's very, very limited compared to what we're allowed to do here to really sus out the potential bias. Another thing that's interesting, Megan, in a, in a weird way is you have so much pomp and circumstance. I'm watching this like the wigs, the lawyers have to wear wigs, they have to wear robes. I picture Harry Potter, right? Like, almost like Severus Snape cruising around with these flowing robes. And the legal definition of reasonable doubt in America is proof to an abiding conviction. And that's interesting. Abiding means something stays. The conviction means based on the evidence and your common sense. Who believes somebody did something strongly enough that it will stay with you, okay? The definition in the UK is, are you sure he did it? That's literally, we have all this pomp and circumstance. This is a nightmare. Mark, what does that mean are you, you must, are you sure he did it? Like, it, that's literally, that's their word, sure, S-U-R-E. So this is a, this is a, the whole thing, none of these cases, Megan, even the last one, by themselves are very good, okay? From a former sexual assault prosecutor, any of these by themselves are all relatively weak. But the question is, how much cross corroboration value is there? And there's probably a lot because they can dirty him up so much with some of these other counts. And I've used the problem. That's the problem. I've used the problem, no wait, evidence, over and over again in my career where you bring in other, other witnesses. But corroboration is the key thing and here there is no, there's no physical examination. There's, there's no police reports at the time. There are some statements made to friends by some of the women, friends, one talked to her sister. And even then that was the, that was the forced oral copulation, and even in that one she didn't tell that to her sister. She didn't tell that to her friend. So every single one of these cases as an individual case are fundamentally problematic. Which when you put them all together and also it's not forget, the jury knows that there was some hit piece documentary where there was at least one or two other people that came forward. So they're aware of that as a part of the case. And yeah, I have some real concerns for the fundamental questions. >> I'm really loving our bill of rights right now. Thinking about jury of your peers and your right against self-incrimination and all the things that our American founding fathers decided to do differently. >> And better. >> The land of most of their ancestry, which they decided this is, and some of it is right in the declaration of independence where they're listing their grievances with the king and the way he's doing things. And those things wound up in our constitution, the human that of nature is overwhelming. But you can see how it's working for the prosecution. Woman number two, who we haven't gotten to yet, she's the one who says he tried to pull me into a bathroom. But didn't. That's her case. That is at one of the counts against him. And you're like, what am I listening to this woman for? Why is this in a courtroom now charged as a felony? Well woman number three testifies that she met Brand and that she basically was taken into a bathroom by him and that he got up on the toilet and forced himself in her mouth. And rape charge. So like, I think victim alleged victim number two is there to set up alleged victim number three is like, this is a pattern for him. They're raising serious questions about whether a six foot one, I think Russell Brand, he's at least six foot one. I've been across from him standing. And the five foot three plaintiff could even physically have done the act like that with Russell Brand standing on a toilet. But they're using one, they're lining up the ducks. Well, let me say, the biggest issue in all of this is the sheer grotesqueness of the allegations. And to go back to something, you know, Mark took issue with earlier, you know, not to say that there's no such thing as rape and it's all regret or there's no such thing as regret and it's all rape, you're dealing with a spectrum, you know, of situations one is total stranger, total non consent, no, no even, you know, possibility that there was an implied consent. And then you get into situations which date rape or you knew the guy, you had no idea was going to go this far. And then you get into these, these 20 solid year old gray zones where even by the description from both sides, because you go and you read Russell Brand's bookie book and what he says there, you're going to deal with things that are so exploitive bordering on sexually abusive, if not rape that it might just, you know, be so disgusting to the jury members that they're going to air on the side of, you know, non consent because of how grotesquely sexually exploitive all of this was by Russell Brand's own admission. And you know, it's some, it's a bad situation all around. Some of the charges, yeah, you know, grabbing it by the arm, the oral sex in the bathroom, you know, people are going to say, how does that even happen non consensually? But there's admissions on both sides, if you corroborate it with his book, that people are going to say, even, you know, I'm not sure if it was rape or not, but it was so wildly abusive and exploitive that even Russell had to atone for it, you know, he might have given the best ammunition for the plaintiffs or the victims, the alleged victims that anybody else. When you hear these accounts, Mark, the only, forgive the analogy, but the only thing I can think of is like a dog in heat. If you've ever had, like, we had a female dog during COVID who did not get spayed. She was at the end of her puppy year and we were in the mountains of Montana and COVID was shut down. We get her in to see a vet to spay her, so, you know, we had, she went through her first heat. And if you've ever had a female dog in heat, you know what it's like with the male dogs. Good God. It was like, you know, they were ready to break down our front door. Finally, Doug was out there like, could you keep your damn dogs on leashes trying to protect fourth under? Anyway, when I read this testimonial about Russell Brand's behavior, he sounds like a dog in heat like an unstoppable sex-obsessed force who like was just determined to have as many sex acts with as many women as humanly possible, which isn't illegal if they consent. And because he was a star, you know, to quote somebody very famous, they let you do it. Like a lot of women do let you do it. And like complainant number six, will willingly go backstage and the first moment of knowing you give you a blowjob, but like then drew the line at anal sex, like it then becomes kind of confusing. Yeah. What we don't have access to is the facial expressions, the tears, the graphic detail. That's the stuff that after one witness testifies to you, you watch and you just see whether they're believable or not. And even if there's a question, then the next one goes up there. And the prosecutors doing their job, they're asking graphic detailed question. There wasn't just extra men on the bed. There was blood on the bed. This is not something that she wanted or consented to. In fact, what makes that one credible, the one who was satanized, or claims she should was satanized, was how much she admits that she did do. In other words, if this was all about trying to make him look bad when he wasn't, then say, no, a lot of this wasn't consensual. But she's saying, no, this is what it was. And then he flipped me over and he acted like my golden doodles, peace and quiet. Yes, that are their names, how quiet jumps on peace and just humps the hell out of her. And we go, what a monster, you know, what are you doing? That's what this behavior appears to be in front of the jury. You can't get around the volume, the volume of women testifying. And again, what's the motive? You know, there's always the generic motive, maybe they want money, maybe they want fame. I think with the right questions, a mat Murphy and a wig can easily dispel any reasons other than rape or sexual assault that they aren't claiming what they're claiming. Did they let you choose your wig? Because I'm thinking like if I could get one of those Jacqueline Smith specials that you see in the paper, I'd be fine with it. Why do they all have to be white and ugly? It looks like my fourth of July celebration at the beach every summer, I don't, no one can pull that off. That's the air. Nobody looks good in this. Nobody was supposed to make everybody people along to the law, except it costs thousands of dollars to get them so in order to even spend thousands of dollars on. That's the only crime that we know occurred in that courtroom, those wigs. Yes, yes. That judge looks like, I mean, he looks like something out of the middle ages. It's terrifying. Imagine walking to a courtroom and seeing this guy's overseeing your proceeding. Oh my God. For the listening audience, it's like the terrible white wig that goes kind of shoulder length or below shoulder length on both sides. And he's wearing some white robe with like red adornments on it. I don't know. It's like giving kind of Nazi vibes. I'm not sure what's going on in the white gloves critical. Yeah, I would not like this person in charge of my fate. I know Mark Eigler's you got to run so I'll let you, you go, go, but we're going to keep going because there's other testimonials. Go ahead, man. I was just going to say like you also. bear in mind, this is in the country where these judges in their white robes are sentencing people to 18 months to 25 months for social media posts. This, Russell is in big trouble and I say at the end of the day, he will be to the extent he is innocent, he'll be the victim of the victim of his own exploitive conduct for which he saw to a tone. And if he is guilty, then he'll get punishment under the law. But this is like where the sins of the past and the things that you've done to exploit people by your own admission, but there's a difference between exploitation and rape. Well, when you do it enough with enough people and push that line to a very close line, push the envelope, it comes back to haunt you and in a country with no statute of limitations on rape, that's a lot of women and a lot of time to come back and say what you did was so exploitive and so abusive back in the day, in retrospect, I no longer think it was consensual. If it ever was even, you know, commencement of consent to, I want to talk about complainants two and three. So two is the one who I don't understand what we're doing here. Here is what she's alleging happened to her courtesy of our friend at the BBC South 35. Complain at number two said, I like your t-shirt. I want one to which he responded. You can have it. And they told the jury that they said, you've got to give it a good wash first or words to that effect. They then said that Russell Brand asked them where the toilet was in the office and they were happy to show them where it was. They walked him down the corridor, but then, quote, his demeanor changed. He grabbed my forearm and was trying to pull me into the bathroom. Complain at two said that he was pleading with her, saying, come on, come on, trying to drag her into the bathroom. When questioned by prosecutors, how hard was Russell Brand pulling you? Complain at two said, it was hard. It wasn't a gentle pull, but I'm a strong, sporty woman. I'm stronger than the average women I was trying to quote, wrench myself back into the corridor. The prosecution asked Complain at two, how were you responding to Mr. Brand when he was saying, come on, come on, try to pull you into the bathroom. And Complain at two told the jury that they said, quote, what are you doing? Are you mad? Let me go. They also said repeatedly that they were trying to wrench themselves free from his grip and that he looked like a wild eyed maniac. OK, that's it. It's all that happened with woman number two. Again, I don't know what we're doing here with her, other than to set up Complain at number three. And this is what she is alleging. Now, Complain at number three, this is the alleged oral rape. The prosecution laid out to the jury that this happened in the early 2000s when his star was on the rise. He was on Big Brother. And Complain at three knew who he was. She knew he was going to be at a little get together that she was at as well. She was excited to meet him and actually asked to be introduced to him. The prosecution told the jury that Complain at three in Russell Brand ended up striking up a conversation at the bar in the middle of the conversation. He allegedly lunged forward and grabbed her breast and had a, quote, big, weird grin. Then they told the jury that after the lunge and the grab of the breast, he pulled on her forearm and was trying to get her to go into a bathroom that was just across from the bar. They say Complain at remembered the floor being wet and flooded. The prosecution then told the court that Russell Brand, okay, well, actually we, I think we have this, the details, well, here's some of them in 37 sort of pleasant conversation for about a minute. And then she said he leaned forwards, 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 toilets. You 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 onto 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. Complained through, he also told the court that she closed her eyes and tried not to be there during the alleged oral rape, saying, I couldn't even look at him. I was shaking. When I 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. Okay, they pointed out on cross examination that, actually, this is on direct, on the prosecution's examination, that Russell Brand then suggested that they swap numbers and after this happened, she wound up complaining three in a car with Russell Brand, she wound up, okay, if somebody has just forced himself on me in a bathroom stall at a venue, I don't get into a car with him and go to a second location, like ejaculating in her mouth and then she merrily goes along in the car, then she testified that when she was in the car, she said she can't quite remember how that happened, that while she was in the back seat with him, he started nudging her. She looked over and he had taken his penis out of his trousers and said, come on, suck it. Again, that she allegedly said no, he laughed and accepted her refusal. They said afterwards, she contacted someone named Martin Smith and sort of told him what happened. Martin Smith has since passed away but managed to give a statement to police before where he says he remembers that conversation, but his memory was foggy. So he was not of much help. She said she did not report it to the police that she felt ashamed and dirty. And she also didn't tell Martin Smith the full extent of what she said happened and it wasn't until she saw the documentary that she came forward. Here's a bit of the cross-examination in sat 38. 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 cause a scene, quote, you just took his hand when he said, let's bob in there, there being the toilet for a kiss and a cuddle. I didn't use shout, it's because you were excited and no doubt charmed. So offering the idea that complainant number three willingly went with Russell Brand into the bathroom to engage in consensual sexual activity, complainant three said, I met this person for a minute before they sexually assaulted me, I was in shock. When he grabbed my arm and tried to pull me into the bathroom, I was already in shock from him grabbing my breasts. Then there was a back and forth between the defense and the complainant about which bathroom it was, was it the men's, was it disabled bathroom, was it the women's, she couldn't quite remember which bathroom it was, pictures were brought up, we looked at a map that she had annotated and she said, well, I'm not sure if it was that room actually, I can't quite recall. And the defense suffered quote, you don't have the faintest idea which bathroom it was. The defense continued saying, so you're saying that after he ejaculated in your mouth, you went back to the party, complainant three said, I was in a days, I was numb, I was shocked, I didn't know what was going on, I was wondering around the event looking for a friendly face, someone that I recognized, I was having an out of body experience, later on in the re-examination from the prosecution complainant number three said, it was like watching myself in a movie like I wasn't really there in my body. The defense then went on to questioning complainant three about them ending up in the car with Russell Brand traveling to the next venue and they, and I'm going to say complainant three, this was a consistent thing that came up over and over again, they cannot remember the sequence of events that led them to getting in that car, whether they were shepherded or whether they just stumbled into the car, they cannot remember it's very hazy, the defense said, he invited you into the car and to the next venue and you intentionally went quote, obviously you would want to go home if you'd just been raped in the mouth. You behaved inconsistently with what you said happened. I mean, Matt, it sounds like the defense is doing exactly what it should do because that is tough to believe that she just got violently raped in a bathroom stall, willingly gotten to a car with him and went to another location with him like, sure, great, let's continue hanging out. This just doesn't sound plausible. No, it's tough, right? Megan, it's a difficult thing to wrap your head around. She just been sexually assaulted in a horrific way and that's really tough to reconcile. How do you go from a brutal sexual assault the way she described it to getting in a car. Now she says in the car, he took his penis out again and exposed himself and she said no in the car and then he accepted. Another thing, just going back to the procedural differences, the idea that a dead guy can wind up in testimony where you don't have the right to cross-examine that person is really problematic. That's another thing I can't wrap my head around. They would never allow that here. No, because you have a fundamental right in America to confront across-examine your accusers and the witnesses called against you. If somebody dies, you can do what's called a conditional exam where if the defense is able to get to the hospital bed before the person passes with a judge and court reporter, you can ask them all the questions you would have on cross, but I don't think that happened here. It's another thing. The reason why those laws were changed is going back to get on my constitutional soapbox for a second is because the founding fathers of the United States saw people get screwed over and over again in this kind of archaic system of justice that the utilize in the UK. If I could give a parallel case, a lot of people don't know this. There's another very high-profile series of accusations of sexual abuse by somebody famous and that was the Johnny Depp case. A lot of people don't know. ever so try. in London, where he was suing one of the newspapers there for defamation, regarding allegations from Amber Hurd, which were completely false from what I watched in the trial and all of us did that. And he lost that trial in London, and it doesn't bode well for what's going to happen to Russell Brand. Testimony from Dead Guys, and even that, this guy said that she didn't provide all of those details and his memory was foggy, and she later admitted she did not tell him about the four-storeal copulation, is what we would call it here, they call it oral rape there. So yeah, it's another layer on this, Megan, which is just kind of bizarre to watch. The last two, I should say, Viva involve women, one alleges that she was working with him at Channel 4, that they basically wanted to get Russell in the room. And somebody told her, you're going to have to give him a massage. She realized, oh my God, that's not a joke, they actually want me to do this. And that when Russell Brand came into the room, he dropped to his knees in front of a complainant, buried his face in her groin. She could feel his breath on her genitals. And he was saying, come on, do it as in give him the massage. They said that the complainant number six ultimately got her fingers and prodded him, prodded them into his upper shoulders and made a remark like, oh, you're so bony, which made the other men in the room laugh. They told the jury that Russell Brand did not like this and then began to make a disparaging remark. Like, you have a deep voice, do you have a deward or a fanny? And that was it. So that's one of the, that's one of the now sexual assault complaints against him. And the last is kind of similar where there was a woman claiming that he grabbed her physically, like he grabbed her, he grabbed her and kissed her and others witnessed it. Here it is. This is complainant number four. Here's back to our friend Anushka Mutanda Doherty of the BBC podcast in Saat 40. 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 launched 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 managed to put their hand up between them and Russell Brand and push him off and tell him to fuck off. At which point, he launched backwards and in a laughing way went ha ha and looked at the other people who were around. Complain at 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 all edged, they were assaulted by Russell Brand. Different kind of cross on her by defense attorney Winter in stop 41, described here by Anoshka. But the defense was offering, 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. Complain at 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, 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 Complain at four said, I can't exactly remember when I gave the account saying there were four men there. I remember there being three men and one woman and the defense said, well, then that is 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 Complain at 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, hope he should step in, but she didn't. So here's the thing, Viva. Russell Brand genuinely might not remember an incident like that given the allegedly thousands of women he was betting a year. But if you are one of the women, you would remember. I mean, if that's just your one encounter with Russell Brand, you are going to remember. And I think this is another challenge for him, just given how promiscuous he's been by his own admission. That is the issue is it's by his own words. And you can be an alcoholic and not necessarily break the law. You can be a drug addict and you're breaking the law. But to the extent you admit that you were a sex addict, you're bringing in other humans into your addiction where you might be very well breaking the law as relates to their consent. To get back to the lesser serious cases of grabbed her by the arm, grabbed her by the boobs. I mean, you are at least the prosecution is there building up a modus operandi and also just the stages of it. And the women to say, well, why didn't you lock the door and close it? Well, because you know, he forced himself on me too quickly and now they're trying to say, this is how he did it to other people who did stop him at the early stages and pull away and say, you know, f off. But then again, going back to a situation where assume that you operate on the presumption of innocence and that it was a consensual blow job in a bathroom that sounds like the bathroom out of train spotting. And you feel disgusting and dirty used that you might have exposed yourself to sexually transmitted disease by giving a three second awful, aggressive BJ to somebody who you thought was a celebrity. You know, again, everyone in this situation is going to suffer some sort of consequences of their decisions where you might not be able to prove that it was rape, but you're certainly going to feel disgusting afterwards. And if you're Russell men and you engage in this thinking, it's star power and sex addiction and sex addiction, I'm going to exploit my power over this person, you might be getting very close to the borderline between dirty behavior and, you know, sexual abuse, rape. And but the problem is 30, 25 years later, how do you tell the difference between the two and the other problem though, however, enough stories like this, you're going to get a jury that's going to say this is also disgusting, dirty by his own admissions, I'll give the benefit of the doubt, even if it's contrary to the presumption of innocence, to the claimants of the victims here and find him guilty of something at the end of the day. Matt, do we know how long he could potentially, like if he's found guilty of rape, do we know what kind of prison sentence he could possibly be looking at? We do. It's life. Life in prison. Now, he would probably be sentenced to something less than that, but look, again, I prosecuted these, like I said, I've done a bunch of these, my entire background, long before I got to homicide with sexual assault. I don't like this case for a variety of reasons. I've reviewed these for filing. I advocate for victims of sexual assault. I donate my time to victims of sexual assault. I have a lot of problems with what I've seen in this and I'm no Russell Brown fan. I didn't agree with him when he was on the left on a lot of stuff and I disagreed with him and a lot of the crazy stuff in conspiracy theories. Now that he's gone the other way, but I, I don't like this case, I really don't. Here is Russell. He came here in April of last year and here he is responding to the charges, sorry, he came here in April of 26 and the year before this is him responding to the charges, 51. We're very fortunate in a way to live in a time where they're so little trust in the British government. We're very fortunate, I suppose, that this is happening at a time where we know that the law has become a kind of weapon to be used against people, institutions and sometimes entire nations that will not accept and tolerate levels of corruption around president. Now that's just sort of general context. Me, I've always told you guys that when I was young and single before I had my wife and family, you were just that short over there, my beautiful children, I was a full man. I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile, but what I never was was a rapist. I've never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking at my eyes. I just have one other. He and his wife talked about what it was like to be on the receiving end because I mean, there's no question whatever Russell brand used to be, he has tried to reform his life. He says that he's found God, he's found Christianity. He has gotten married to a lovely lady. They've started a family. He's living very differently now than he used to. I personally believe in redemption, absolutely. If you've committed crimes, there's a price to pay and the jury's going to have to have the final say on that, unfortunately, because this does feel like a sham trial. And here is Russell with his wife, Laura, talking about being on the receiving end of these allegations, at 53. "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 have been experiencing more than one difficulty at the time, you know. We have a son who has our 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 of darkness, taking a break for a moment from all the media coverage and 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 sort of extraordinary when all this. I guess we got to let him come. Come on in. This is herbie. He's all right now. What's up? Come on in. Hello. 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 subsequently become. But I feel like, oh my god, I spent like 20 years screwing around like an idiot. It's untrue. A liar's been pulled. 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 this system isn't as far as we all think it is. Oh man, Viva, that's one of those, it's either laugh or cry situations because it is a very real possibility that Russell Brand is going to wind up behind bars. You know, and again, by his own words, it's when you say, I personally believe that, you know, people, an addict is an addict for life and you just have to substitute the bad addiction for a healthy addiction. And when I met Russell twice, you know, it's clear that he's substituted out the bad addictions for an addiction in religion. And that's the type of, I say, healthy addiction that doesn't destroy a human. But you know, referring to self as a drug addict and then referring to self as a sex addict, well, the difference between those two things is what lies on the other end of the addiction. And you can abuse drugs and it's an inanimate object. But when you start by your own admission, abusing humans, whether or not it was rape in the legal, in the legal sense, you can easily understand how, from their perspective, they can turn it into that or it might have actually been that in the time. And you were just too addicted to drugs and sex to even be paying attention to the element of consent. That being said, again, you know, there's undoubtedly, there's a lot to this. And Russell has engaged in stuff that is immoral to say the least. And then, you know, whether or not it's illegal is going to be a question for the court to decide. But you flirt that line and you exploit enough people over an extended period of time, something like this will happen. And then you have to defend yourself against what you say was consensual 25 years ago under the throws of drugs and sex addiction. You know, I'm thinking of the Cornell case in a way, Matt, because well, I do not believe that Jane Doe was raped at all at on Cornell's campus or anywhere else that I know of. When I think about the position those young men are in now, it's like risky behavior leads to bad outcomes. It's just, you know, and Russell Brand is learning that first hand now too. It's like, keep your house in order and minimize the chances. This is going to happen to you, right? If he is innocent of rape and these were all consensual encounters, he's still sitting there today because of really risky behavior that he engaged in, which was, I mean, beyond risky, it was actually reckless. And it's like, that's the takeaway, right? It's like, my God, warn your loved ones, girls and boys, you know, young men and young women for the love of God, like, keep your moral standard high and don't subject yourself to this kind of a situation where someone can potentially use your politics against you or a general unwellness on their part, which this is the cross examination and the defense theme against you. Yeah, well, look, there's an old adage, right? It's a little cross, but every rapist is an asshole, but every asshole is not a rapist. And I heard that in sexual assault, and part of that job is refusing cases out of fairness, and that's the fundamental goal of a prosecutor is always to be fair. To compare those two, one of the things disturbing in the modern day, Megan, is this concept of mob justice where people give very emotional about cases like this, and we start spackling over really critical problems with evidence. And mob justice is injustice every single time, and that's why we're not supposed to do it. And this one, when you're talking about a documentary that brings people out, that's fine, but when you look at each individual case, what is the integrity on each one? And yeah, like I said, this one is problematic. And of course, live your life in a way that is mistake-free, and you're not subject to this, but people don't live there. Good luck with that. You know what I mean, especially young men with alcohol and drugs, and young women too. Mistakes are made. Judgment is poor. And fame. You know, fame, you mix all that together. And yeah, he's he's here for a reason. The question is, did he, did he act with a specific intent and with the proper mouse under the the UK law, both pre-2003 and post? And I don't know. I mean, I'm normally as biased towards victims as you can get. And I got I got some deep reservations about this. I hate what the judge did. I look, Megan, I've been in that situation before where judges weigh in on one side or another. That is an almost that is a death knell in most cases. When judges shush a lawyer and say it's I'm the judge, you got to listen to me. I'm talking right now. That form a prosecution standpoint, you are 90% in the end zone at that point, because the judge has weighed in very clearly on your side and on behalf of the victim. And that's about as close as instructing the jurors as to what they should believe as anything I've ever even heard of before. So this one is and what is what has been indicated here, you know, the guy has moved on with his life. And I don't know, I believe in redemption. I believe there's an exception for predatory sex offenders. Is Russell Brand, a predatory sex fender, jumped out of the bush as rapist type. In which case, I would have zero sympathy for him. Or is he an A-hole entitled guy who, due to drugs and alcohol, is pushing beyond what a reasonable person would? I don't know the answer, but this one I got some problems with this one. We did pull the sound bite of him on the set on the possibility of prison here it is. I'm worried about your criminal trial. I don't think that you're going to get a fair shake in Great Britain. Oh, no, they love to put people in jail. Oh, no, I don't want to go a jail. I wish my strong preference to not go a jail. I mean, I admire the fact that he's able to keep his sense of humor, because that's honestly what's good. It gets you through everything in life. I can speak to that personally. You guys, thank you. You've done a very long duty today and I really appreciate it. As always, Viva, great to see you, Matt, you too, to be continued. Thank you. Wow. What a case. Thank you all for joining me today. Tomorrow, we've got Glenn Greenwald on the program. Lots to discuss with him. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show, no BS, no agenda, and no fear. (upbeat music)