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Russell Brand raped a woman in a hotel room after making her take photos of him prancing around in his ‘budgie smugglers’, a court heard.
The 51-year-old is on trial at Southwark Crown Court having denied seven charges, including rapes and sexual assault against six different women from 1999 to 2009.
Jurors have heard he was a ‘ruthless, calculated, manipulative sexual predator’ who used his charm and celebrity status – or force – in a quest to have sex with 5,000 women.
This morning they were shown the first complainant’s video recorded interview with a detective constable in September 2023, in which she says: ‘Russell Brand did rape me.’
She added: ‘He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to have sex that night and I was there.’
Brand watched the woman give her version of events on a TV screen above where the jury are sitting and was provided with a transcript of what was being said.
She described going to see a fringe theatre event during the 1999 Labour Party conference featuring Brand – who was not yet famous – as one of the cast members.
While speaking to her mum in a telephone booth before it started, she said ‘somebody started pulling my hair’, adding: ‘Basically it was Russell Brand, he was doing it while I was on the phone.’
She recalls Brand telling her ‘I have been looking for you’, and she said: ‘I think he grabbed me from behind, like “boo”.
‘He was very childish, he was very playful – I didn’t feel threatened by him.’
She said they ‘chatted for hours’ afterwards and she thought Brand might be gay ‘because he was so complimentary’ and ‘very gentlemanly’, saying: ‘It didn’t feel like he was trying it on with me.’
The woman said she now feels ‘stupid’ for suggesting they go back to her hotel, rather than on to a pub.
After getting back, she told the detective she went straight to the loo and came out to see Brand ‘there in his briefs’.
She said: ‘He was not naked fully, he had his trousers or shorts on, I think shorts or pants – I don’t know what you call them, budgie smugglers, tiny shorts, like briefs.’
The woman said she was ‘taken aback’ and ‘shocked’ as Brand was ‘prancing around’ and ‘sitting on the bed’.
She added: ‘I froze a bit, I’m like “why have you taken your clothes off?”
‘And he was like “it’s OK, its just how I am, don’t worry…. I’m mostly naked at home”.’
Asked for more detail on what she saw, the woman said: ‘I remember him being like an ostrich – like a bird because he was very leggy.
‘I wasn’t laughing, I just remember him jumping up and down being silly.’
She added: ‘Almost like Fawlty Towers-esque, like Basil Fawlty when he does his goose steps.’
The woman told the officer she remember feeling ‘frightened’ after Brand forced her to take pictures of him on her camera before allegedly raping her.
She said his underwear left little to the imagination and she ‘could see he was getting turned on’, adding ‘that’s when I knew it wasn’t going to end well, to be honest’.
The woman said: ‘I was frightened. I remember feeling “what on earth have I got myself into” – and then he did rape me.
‘He pushed me onto the bed. He did take my trousers off.’
The court heard the alleged victim ‘drifted out of my head’ as a ‘heavy’ Brand raped her.
The woman told the officer: ‘I just remember him on me, really heavy, and me trying not to let him.
‘I know I said no and I just drifted out of my head.
‘I couldn’t get out of the situation – do I shout, do I scream?
‘It didn’t take long, I just know it was quick.’
Afterwards, she said Brand appeared ‘happy – like nothing was wrong’, and he dressed and wrote down his email address.
She also remembered Brand saying he ‘had to get back to his mum’, and told the police officer: ‘I think he was trying to show me he was a family guy.’
She recalled feeling ‘dirty’ and crying afterwards, saying she ‘chose to suppress it’.
‘I didn’t want any of this to be in the public domain,’ she added.
‘It made me feel so dirty and I thought it was my fault…but in those days it was your fault, it was always your fault.’
Jurors heard that the woman began ‘having nightmares’ about the possibility of being pregnant.
She said a 2023 Dispatches documentary about allegation of sexual misconduct by Brand ‘triggered’ her to go to police.
Ms Karmy-Jones said during her opening that Brand is expected to argue that sex was always consensual, and he will suggest that his accusers have ‘reimagined’ their encounters with him.
At the start of Thursday’s court hearing, Mr Justice Bennathan told the jury they would not be watching the Dispatches documentary on Brand because it ‘would not be fair’.
The trial continues.
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