Russell Brand is being accused of rape

[Danioover9000]

@LSD-Rumi , @Hello from Russia , @Consept and @zurew, calm down everyone, let's not make this a heated debate and personal attacks. Tone down the instigating. These are all just allegations, YouTube overreacted and canceled his Channel over allegations that are not corroborated yet. We still don't know an official investigation is launched, no official court date for Russel Brand. None of this is supported in the court of law.

[Raze]

8 minutes ago, Consept said:

Yeah definitely the evidence should be shown which was what happened in this case and then its up to the public to decide whether they still want to give money and support Brand. Also I agree false allegations should not be allowed, in the UK the current law comes down extremely hard on false allegations, if you take a look at this case - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49576940  where basically well known celebrity has his name put out there in terms of him committing some kind of sexual assault which he believed there was absolutely no substance to, he sued the BBC and got a few million in damages and legal fees. Point being media outlets can not post just print allegations without substantial evidence otherwise they will get sued and suffer reputational damage. So the media is very careful with naming names. As i said if Brand really feels there is no truth here he should sue, even if he doesnt care about the money it would save his reputation as it did with Cliff Richard. Of course he wont which is not a good indication of innocence. 

Yes those people shouldve been reported to the police but this was the same with Brand, he had at least a 10 year plus period where he was operating like this. The trouble with celebrities, is that they have a lot of power, that is why its hard to report them, not only that they have lawyers, this is how all these people operated in the way they did, Weinstein, Epstein etc. 

I would agree that Brand most likely doesnt operate this way any more and it would be nice to say 'ah well slap on the wrist, at least youve cleaned yourself up', but how would you feel if someone raped your sister and didnt get any justice and then even denied it 10 years later? Unfortunately for him karma has caught up 

 

 

“the evidence should be shown which is what happened in this case”, no it didn’t, no evidence was shown, we just have allegations.

The case you linked says he wasn’t awarded for false allegations, he was awarded because they filmed a raid on his house violating his privacy.

It isn’t harder to report celebrities than anyone else, having lawyers doesn’t stop reports, they come in after you report.

I’m not saying he should get a slap on the wrist, you brought up reporting to the media with examples like Epstein and Saville being that it could be done as a way to stop them from continuing harms when police reporting doesn’t work. In this case that argument doesn’t fly because if Brand did do it, he already stopped.

If he did do it he shouldn’t get a slap on the wrist - he should actually get punished but only after a proper police investigation and trial in court, not allegations made by the media.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Raze

[Danioover9000]

   Let's all chill, calm down. Let's not make this some witch hunt okay?

[Consept]

39 minutes ago, Raze said:

EDIT: also, looking it up the conviction rate for rape cases that make it to court is 75 percent in England and Whales https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/england-juries-convict-defendants-of-rape-more-often-than-acquit

Not exactly so what i was quoting, which i probably didnt explain properly, is that only 1% of reported rapes lead to a conviction - https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2022/04/new-scorecards-show-under-1-of-reported-rapes-lead-to-conviction-criminologist-explains-why-englands-justice-system-continues-to-fail what you posted is that the conviction rate of the cases that go to court is 75%. False claims potentially account for 2-10% of rape cases although this is a hard number to pin down - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45565684

So bottom line there are a lot of people committing rape and getting away with it despite the rapes being reported, which means a lot more that we dont even know of occur as they go unreported.  

24 minutes ago, Raze said:

“the evidence should be shown which is what happened in this case”, no it didn’t, no evidence was shown, we just have allegations.

Witness testimony would be considered evidence, as well as text messages. One of the women reported and did a documented rape kit after the incident 10 years ago. These are all credible evidences, but he still may not get convicted as most dont. 

 

30 minutes ago, Raze said:

It isn’t harder to report celebrities than anyone else, having lawyers doesn’t stop reports, they come in after you report.

It is significantly more difficult for the victims to report if the perpetrator is more powerful. How would a 16 year old girl go against someone like Brand? She wouldnt even know where to start. We've seen it over and over again with Weinstein, Epstein, Cosby, Saville etc the reason why they can operate as they do is the power they wield. 

33 minutes ago, Raze said:

In this case that argument doesn’t fly because if Brand did do it, he already stopped.

Yes he did stop as far as we know but ultimately there are people in the world who youve done damage to who will want to get back at you no matter how long it takes. You can leave the mafia but your enemies might still want your head. 

34 minutes ago, Raze said:

If he did do it he shouldn’t get a slap on the wrist - he should actually get punished but only after a proper police investigation and trial in court, not allegations made by the media.

As i say it might not go to court but he still couldve done it, so how do we square that circle? 

@danioover9000 

Im just making the point that its more nuanced than innocent til proven guilty. Chill no ones attacking anyone 

[Vrubel]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's not what the apology sounded like. It sounded like he was apologizing for being forceful with her.

As part of Sex-ed young men should be taught to always take it slowly. The whole beauty of initiating love is that you take it slowly, being accommodating and giving the girl the space to potentially react clearly if she changes her mind. Guys should know that it's normal to sleep with a girl in the same bed without sex if she is not receptive. By stating this as normal this takes a lot of the pressure off. What we have now is just blindly terrifying young men with #metoo shaming which only creates more confusion, dysfunction and potentially even more sexual misconduct. 
 

[Leo Gura]

So, I finally got around to watching the documentary.

Pretty clear that he was addicted to sex and pursued it shamelessly, which lead to various kinds of abusive and toxic situations. There's not much to argue about here. The only question is, can he be legally charged for any of it?

What I found most interesting is that basically Russell Brand seems to have lost all of his top-tier media gigs years ago in the UK and even in Hollywood because of his toxic, wild, and unprofessional behavior. Which explains why he transitioned to Youtube. I have always wondered why such a big name celebrity is dicking around on Youtube rather than starring in large Hollywood roles. Now it makes sense. He became radioactive after #MeToo -- a legal nightmare for studios.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Danioover9000]

@Consept

2 hours ago, Consept said:

Not exactly so what i was quoting, which i probably didnt explain properly, is that only 1% of reported rapes lead to a conviction - https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2022/04/new-scorecards-show-under-1-of-reported-rapes-lead-to-conviction-criminologist-explains-why-englands-justice-system-continues-to-fail what you posted is that the conviction rate of the cases that go to court is 75%. False claims potentially account for 2-10% of rape cases although this is a hard number to pin down - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45565684

So bottom line there are a lot of people committing rape and getting away with it despite the rapes being reported, which means a lot more that we dont even know of occur as they go unreported.  

Witness testimony would be considered evidence, as well as text messages. One of the women reported and did a documented rape kit after the incident 10 years ago. These are all credible evidences, but he still may not get convicted as most dont. 

 

It is significantly more difficult for the victims to report if the perpetrator is more powerful. How would a 16 year old girl go against someone like Brand? She wouldnt even know where to start. We've seen it over and over again with Weinstein, Epstein, Cosby, Saville etc the reason why they can operate as they do is the power they wield. 

Yes he did stop as far as we know but ultimately there are people in the world who youve done damage to who will want to get back at you no matter how long it takes. You can leave the mafia but your enemies might still want your head. 

As i say it might not go to court but he still couldve done it, so how do we square that circle? 

@danioover9000 

Im just making the point that its more nuanced than innocent til proven guilty. Chill no ones attacking anyone 

   Playing devil's advocate here:   

   So, the majority of rapes are not reported, and a minority of rapes are? Does this justify making slanderous defamatory allegations that are yet provable, for the minority of allegation that are later proven false? And the reputational lose, most severe against men that are not celebrities?

   Witness testimony, and text messages, would be considered hard evidence? Including the text message shown in the documentary, and the one sentence most egregious as to slander Russel Brand's character? True, one woman did report and documented rape kit and took antibiotics, that does not necessarily mean that she was raped, what if she was having rough sex up against a wall? Or roleplaying a rape fantasy? Or under the influence of a drug/alcohol? Also, the text message itself is worded suspiciously, so can we consider the text message credible? How do we determine the credibility of the text message, by hiring a statement analyst?

   True that it's more difficult reporting against celebrities. How would a 16 year old go against someone like Brand? I don't know, you don't know, the readers don't know, yet we're skipping that and assuming we'd know a bit, that a 16 year old girl doesn't know where to begin, assume this 16 year old is like the victims of Harvey Weinstein, Jeff Epstein, Bill Cosby, Jimmy Saville, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and so on, with no evidence that she is like those victims exactly in body and mind.

   Does holding onto a revenge, and waiting for many years and decades, make it moral? Does that then make it premeditated, therefore there's intention and attention, onto an obsession of getting back, getting even, getting revenge, therefore far more harm is done long term by the victim themselves, fantasizing getting revenge over trying to heal, go to therapy, seeking help from psychologist/psychoanalysts/therapists of different fields instead?

   How do we square that circle, of 'he might not go to court yet is guilty?'? We don't know, but we could ask it in a different inversed order to help make more sense of this issue: How do we square that circle of 'he might be innocent, but his YouTube Channel is taken down, banned from social media platforms, taken to court, falsely charged? How do we make sense of this issue properly, so that in the future we can accurately solve most rape cases, while minimizing reputation lose, social ostracization, psychological harm of slander/defamation for the minority of men who are innocent? Believe me, there's a perverse incentive to jail men/women, even if allegation are false because sometime we deal with crooked cops/detectives that'll pressure you into confessing more than understanding the actual truth, and businesses related to prisons benefit with you being in jail, guilty or innocent because you'll be paying for a lawyer, sometimes out of your pocket, out of your retirement fund, or your family member pays, even for bail there's pay.

[Consept]

@Danioover9000

Thanks for your comment. This will never be a perfect system you have to accept that some people may be treated unfairly, the question is what can they do about (the alleged rapist) if it is an unfair allegation that has baseless evidence? 

What Brand can do is sue the Times and Channel 4 for libel and defamation, this will clear his name. Suing the media is pretty common place in the UK, a media outlet 'news of the world' literally got shut down fairly recently for egregious stories about celebrities that they obtained through phone tapping. But in general you can not put out false information and not get sued in the mainstream media, look at what happened with fox and the stolen election  fiasco. 

The problem is Brand most likely won't sue because of the evidence that is there. If it was me and I knew I didn't do anything I'd definitely be suing as do many celebrities. 

So as I see it 1 of 2 options are what happened, one is that he didn't do anything wrong but the media for whatever reason want to bring him down so they make up stories, encourage women he's slept with in his past to lie or exaggerate and put together a mostly false report, risking being sued for millions for defamation. 

Or he did get into some horrible situations where he took advantage of women and potentially raped a couple whilst living a life of addiction. This was reported at the time by one woman and was also written about in a book by another, media outlets get wind of these stories and put together a report after 4 years of investigating. 

If the first scenario is true then he's got grounds to sue if the second is true then he probably won't sue but will blame the media for attacking him and deny or he could come clean and just apologise. 

Please note I'm not even judging Brand, I'm just explaining that it's not a simple situation of innocent till proven guilty for this type of situation. 

@Leo Gura

I don't think there will be any criminal charges, the 16 year old technically was legal and I'm not sure the woman who got raped is going to press charges. So essentially it would be just reputational damage. 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Russell Brand is guilty. Don't be blind. 

[Raze]

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/21/video-platform-rumble-rejects-mps-call-to-demonetise-russell-brand

UK Government is now trying to get him pulled off of Rumble. 

[Tanz]

@Raze

37 minutes ago, Raze said:

UK Government is now trying to get him pulled off of Rumble. 

If Rumble succeeds, they will lose their audience so I dont think they are going to cave in.  They exist because they claim to be unbias and more free than youtube.  

The people on the left wont go to them so they gain very little doing that to Brand

[Jodistrict]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Jodistrict How do you explain Russell's own texts apologizing to the allegedly raped girl the next day?

I don’t know.  The purpose of the allegations is to get the social media mob to narrow its focus on the target and spend days of their time fighting over silly details:  “he exposed himself.  No he didn’t expose himself”, because this amplifies the focus and demonizes the target.    I am more interested in the timing.  Even the most recent allegations were years ago.  Being a mindless hedonist idiot is actually encouraged by the overlords.  But it is useful for control, if it gives them power to silence critics –“we will overlook your behavior as long as you stick with the narrative”.  This actually affects us all because it will also affect our free speech.  I think a more convincing case to look at is Julian Assange.  He exposes corrupt government officials and then a short time later gets rape charges.   There are also many others, (e.g. Bill Cosby).  There is a pattern here.    

[Yimpa]

1 hour ago, Jodistrict said:

There is a pattern here.    

Yeah, the truth may indeed shock you.

Let’s keep contemplating and see where this goes. If you dare!

[Consept]

Do you guys also not see the hypocrisy that Russell Brands whole YouTube channel is going at people like Fauci, Gates, Trudeux, Obama etc accusing them of lying, being criminals, tarnishing their names, are they not innocent til proven guilty? 

Isn't this basically the same thing he does to them daily, have you seen some of the thumbnails he posts 

Also Brand is not powerful at all, that the establishment would spend this long trying to bring him down. No serious academics care about what he says, he's got no political power, he's basically harmless, he was never going to bring down the government, he just makes money off people that love conspiracies, they're not out here protesting and rioting, there's no threat from 6 million followers that watch Russell complain about rich people not having their best interests at heart. That's basically the truth they're supposedly worried about him exposing. 

[LSD-Rumi]

@Leo Gura Do you think YouTube's decision to demonetize him is more justifiable/justified now?

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, Raze said:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/21/video-platform-rumble-rejects-mps-call-to-demonetise-russell-brand

UK Government is now trying to get him pulled off of Rumble. 

The UK gov is ridiculous here. Of course Rumble will not remove him.

3 hours ago, LSD-Rumi said:

@Leo Gura Do you think YouTube's decision to demonetize him is more justifiable/justified now?

No.

The issue is that Brand's YT content has nothing to do with sexual assault. What he did 10 years ago is not relevant to his YT channel today.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Alex M]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What I found most interesting is that basically Russell Brand seems to have lost all of his top-tier media gigs years ago in the UK and even in Hollywood because of his toxic, wild, and unprofessional behavior. Which explains why he transitioned to Youtube. I have always wondered why such a big name celebrity is dicking around on Youtube rather than starring in large Hollywood roles. Now it makes sense. He became radioactive after #MeToo -- a legal nightmare for studios.

The big media companies cleaned up their act from that period when Brand was fully mainstream. A defining moment (as @Consept mentioned was when he was fired from the BBC2 radio show). Shit that used to fly will no longer happen (like this example https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66882644). He seems to be morphing and chasing the money. On YouTube, he went from someone talking about spirituality/wellness and jumping to right-leaning talking points. This appears to have mainly happened during lockdown, where views of his videos doubled/tripled. So, of course, he pivoted onto those talking points instead (pure survival, haha). He was aligned with his old 'edgy' vibe and with somewhat less integrity. 

I find it ironic looking at the titles of his videos from that period onwards. They seem to instil a lot of fear-mongering and have a more mainstream media vibe (talking about politics / Covid / Ukraine war). Even though they are very anti-mainstream, a lot of confliction is going on.

[zurew]

2 hours ago, Consept said:

Do you guys also not see the hypocrisy that Russell Brands whole YouTube channel is going at people like Fauci, Gates, Trudeux, Obama etc accusing them of lying, being criminals, tarnishing their names, are they not innocent til proven guilty? 

No: "Its only a problem if its done to the guys we like". 

Imagine if we would use the same brainrot conspiratorial thinking to make Russel guilty:

Quote

" Look guys, Russel is a really powerful dude, he was a hollywood star, he has a lot of other powerful friends, and it is very interesting that he worked hard on character assasinating guys (who could overpower him) like: Fauci, Gates, Trudeux, Obama. It seems like Russel doesn't want those guys to be competitive with him, therefore he wants to get rid of them before they become more powerful than him.

Its very terrifying and makes me worried that a whole bunch of people are agreeing with this narrative even though none of his accused guys have been proven guilty yet. Its insanely terrifying that Russel has so much power that he can create narratives and millions of people will follow him and will agree with him. I think we should start asking  questions about him and I think its very likely that he did rape just based on the  fact, that he has other powerful friends and hollywood alone is associated with other rape charges therefore the conclusion is that it is likely, that he is guilty of  rape or multiple rapes "

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by zurew

[Alex M]

2 hours ago, Consept said:

Do you guys also not see the hypocrisy that Russell Brands whole YouTube channel is going at people like Fauci, Gates, Trudeux, Obama etc accusing them of lying, being criminals, tarnishing their names, are they not innocent til proven guilty? 

The irony is comical.

[Leo Gura]

55 minutes ago, Alex M said:

I find it ironic looking at the titles of his videos from that period onwards. They seem to instil a lot of fear-mongering and have a more mainstream media vibe (talking about politics / Covid / Ukraine war). Even though they are very anti-mainstream, a lot of confliction is going on.

I very much dislike Brand's politics, but he should not be penalized for them unless he violates clear YT guidelines.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Leo Gura