Russell Brand arrived at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday after being charged with rape and sexual assault.
The disgraced comedian’s first hearing took place after it was confirmed last month that the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service authorized the Metropolitan Police to charge a man, identified as 49-year-old Brand, following an investigation by detectives.
Brand has been charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault.
The crimes he has been charged with relate to a 1999 rape in the Bournemouth area of the U.K.; a 2001 indecent assault of a woman in Westminster, London; the 2004 oral rape and sexual assault of a woman in Westminster, London; and between 2004 and 2005, the sexual assault of a woman in Westminster, London.
When the formal charges were released, Brand, who has turned to Christianity and been baptized since widespread allegations came to light, responded to the charges in a video shared on his social media, stating: “I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”
Detectives began investigating in September 2023 after receiving a number of allegations, which followed reporting by Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Sunday Times.
The program aired extensive allegations against Brand. One of the women told Dispatches that Brand entered a relationship with her when he was 31 and she was 16. Their relationship lasted three months, she had said, and Brand had been “emotionally abusive and controlling.” Another claimed that Brand raped her in 2012 in his L.A. home, according to the Sunday Times.
The Briton denied all claims made against him, which date between 2006 and 2013, when Brand was at the height of his fame working on Big Brother’s Big Mouth, Kings of Comedy and Big Brother’s Celebrity Hijack. A Banijay U.K.-commissioned investigation later found informal complaints concerning Brand were made over 20 years ago on set, and another review into Brand’s behavior at the BBC, in particular between 2006 and 2008 when he worked for 6 Music and Radio 2, found that fellow employees believed he “would always get his way, and therefore stayed silent” about his inappropriate conduct.