Maintenance Phase - Russell Brand Part 1

00:00:00.000 Michael Hobbs is talking like my little sounds yeah all of it because I was just texting my

00:00:20.440 friend I was probably just like making little sounds I like that you know one of your main

00:00:27.060 sounds which is no because i hear myself doing it i'm like how many times have i done that in

00:00:31.420 the last like five minutes i think i told you about being with hanging out with my brother

00:00:36.180 and uh him sitting down and going yeah i was like that's how old we are we're the age where we do

00:00:43.600 that and he went it feels better it feels it actually feels better i'm with your brother on

00:00:50.200 this one i mean i don't think he's wrong but i just think it was funny that i was like oh yeah

00:00:54.260 you and me were in the same boat and he got real defensive uh what do you have well i have two okay

00:01:00.260 i think i know which one i'm doing give me an a let's a b test it let's a b test option a here

00:01:04.400 we go hi everybody and welcome to maintenance phase the podcast that has a cadence of jokes

00:01:09.360 but are there jokes oh my god that's a spoiler for episode two you can't spoil the second part

00:01:15.780 this is okay you're ready for option b all right b okay do it hi everybody and welcome to

00:01:20.580 maintenance phase our potty wadcast oh my god dude you're gonna make me say the title of this 0.98

00:01:26.320 fucking book aren't you he wrote a book called my bookie work i hate it i would say i have followed 0.98

00:01:32.260 about as much of russell brand's career as your average bear right like aware of big starring 0.99

00:01:38.060 movie roles aware of his work on like panel shows and doing stand-up uh particularly in the 2000s

00:01:45.440 and early 2010s in the uk and then aware of his criminal charges and of his baptism there's been

00:01:55.120 quite the pivot the last couple years we're gonna get into it there sure is and i am aware that he 0.85

00:01:59.040 has been showing up at fucking maha events as well like he he endorsed trump like it's not 0.76

00:02:04.460 it's not like oh he's leaning toward the right he's a full-on just explicit right winger at this 0.97

00:02:08.580 point we took our little divergence away from current events and now we're like half back in

00:02:14.260 But say your name. We haven't like done the names yet.

00:02:16.060 Oh, you want to do a tiny repeating machine?

00:02:18.820 I'm ready.

00:02:20.080 I'm Aubrey Gordon.

00:02:21.540 I'm Michael Hobbs.

00:02:25.320 If you would like to support the show, you can do that at patreon.com slash maintenance phase.

00:02:29.640 You can also subscribe through Apple Podcasts.

00:02:31.720 It's the same audio content.

00:02:33.660 Same stuff, Aubrey.

00:02:35.400 Michael.

00:02:36.380 Today.

00:02:36.620 Today, we are talking about a comedian who is unique in his annoyingness.

00:02:44.780 I was actually, I was watching one of his videos from like, I don't know, 2007 or something

00:02:47.720 yesterday. He said something and I sort of laughed. And I was like, why does this feel so weird?

00:02:53.000 I was like, it's the first time I've laughed in like three weeks.

00:02:57.620 I will say I first came to know Russell Brand. I'm a person who has followed as much as you can

00:03:03.500 from the u.s has like followed british comedy yeah and the jokes about russell brand were like

00:03:09.560 it was like a bunch of jokes being like mothers lock up your daughters i know i know oh yeah and

00:03:15.280 he was like married to katie perry yes in one of the most chaotic wellness marriages we will

00:03:21.920 i know i know also divorced her by text he sort of falls off after a while yeah and then he pops

00:03:29.620 back up with these sexual assault allegations right yes this is the story we are going to be

00:03:34.800 telling today how this guy who was a stand-up comedian then an actor then a fairly credible

00:03:42.620 left-wing figure during like the occupy wall street era becomes a wellness influencer great

00:03:50.200 and then slowly becomes a straightforward right-wing influencer and you know fundamentalist

00:03:57.340 Christian, the kind of guy who has numerous videos about how DEI is a forced agenda and there's

00:04:04.100 gender ideology in the schools. Like he's one of the canonical examples of the far left to wellness

00:04:12.580 to right wing pipeline. Right. So that is what we are going to be doing over the course of the next

00:04:17.820 two episodes. And before we do it, we have to issue the most fucking omni trigger warning we've 0.94

00:04:23.120 ever had on the show these episodes are going to include fucking animal cruelty like child sexual 0.98

00:04:29.120 abuse and like everything you can imagine is going to be in these episodes so like fair warning here 0.98

00:04:34.940 we fucking go so russell brand is born in 1975 in essex when he's six months old his parents 0.80

00:04:41.680 separate so he's basically raised by a single mom it sounds like his mom is like really nice and 0.96

00:04:46.680 a really positive presence in his life his father is this kind of mercurial presence where he will

00:04:54.000 like disappear for months or years on end and then like come back and like shower russell with gifts

00:05:00.500 and do the like hey man it's great i'm gonna be around a lot more these days you know and then 0.99

00:05:04.980 disappear again yeah kind of classic deadbeat dad shit just a disappointment factory yeah exactly 0.99

00:05:10.780 So the book is framed around his treatment for sex addiction. 0.99

00:05:16.420 So the book starts kind of in a like record scratch, I'll bet you're wondering how I

00:05:21.220 got into the situation kind of thing where he's in sex addiction, inpatient treatment

00:05:26.220 in Philadelphia.

00:05:27.420 And then the book kind of rewinds to be like, well, how did I end up in sex addiction treatment?

00:05:31.780 Right. 0.99

00:05:32.060 I've never read a celebrity memoir that has this much fucking sex in it and it's much 1.00

00:05:35.500 like womanizing. 0.99

00:05:36.120 But also I guess his excuse is like, well, that's sort of the theme is that like I've

00:05:40.720 been struggling with sex addiction so we start getting like really worrying sex stuff as early

00:05:47.020 as like the first chapter of the book yeah give me an example of really worrying sex stuff so he

00:05:51.720 has a thing where he has an aunt who like i was like busty and like has big boobs and he's kind

00:05:56.620 of like obsessed with big boobs throughout the book and he sort of schemes as like a four or

00:06:01.140 five year old to be in the bathroom while she's showering so he can like watch her shower oh

00:06:08.160 The way that he remembers this is kind of like, ah-ha-ha, like I managed to be in the bathroom while she was showering.

00:06:14.060 Like what a little rascal.

00:06:16.000 He also started reading his dad's pornography fairly young.

00:06:20.580 This is the 70s and 80s, so there isn't like, you know, internet pornography or anything.

00:06:23.880 Yeah, yeah.

00:06:24.200 So you find a box of magazines or whatever.

00:06:26.360 So his dad is like, I don't know, Playboy, Hustler, whatever the UK's equivalent are.

00:06:29.020 But it appears this is like very young, like four, five, six kind of thing.

00:06:33.780 He's like reading through his dad's pornography.

00:06:35.260 he also i think when he's seven or eight he's he's a bit unclear on the timeline at various points

00:06:40.800 but at seven or eight he's abused by his babysitter i think his babysitter probably

00:06:46.200 brought up masturbation the babysitter was like 16 or 17 years old and little russell was like oh 0.52

00:06:52.040 well what's masturbation and then his babysitter's like i'll show you so he is naked standing in the 0.99

00:06:56.900 shower as his babysitter jerks off oh so he's sexually abused there's no like touching or 0.99

00:07:02.880 anything but like it's definitely an act of abuse yes yeah that is yes he also starts to exhibit i 0.98

00:07:08.700 think like the personality trait that explains his entire political ideology where he seems to be

00:07:15.400 totally oppositional to any figure of authority so he talks about getting in trouble in school

00:07:21.920 like from a fairly young age he says my mom did numerous jobs taking me with her until i began

00:07:27.240 play school where i was frequently in trouble having daily tantrums when she left me behind

00:07:31.500 it's a bit ridiculous to get in trouble at play school. I remember inspecting the spittle flecked

00:07:36.440 faces of senselessly enraged adults looming like ogres thinking well this all seemed like a bit of

00:07:42.200 a storm in a teacup. I was awake as a child. I knew it was nonsense. Over and over again in the

00:07:47.360 book he gets in trouble for various things but there's no point at which he ever recognizes the

00:07:52.860 authority of someone who is mad at him. Even in preschool he's like oh this is unjust. Is there

00:07:57.820 any point where he's like i get why they said that no this is what's so fascinating to me is 0.99

00:08:02.300 like i understand how you would feel that in the moment right you're like this fucking nazi like 0.97

00:08:06.200 won't let me run around during nap time or something but later on you'd be like yeah it 0.98

00:08:10.940 must i must have been a challenge for my teachers or like that was unsafe what i was doing or i can

00:08:17.720 see where they're coming from that probably made their jobs harder yeah even just to sound like a

00:08:23.460 grounded person when you're talking about it in say a book the perfect example of this is in his

00:08:29.320 second memoir my bookie wook too oh my god for the love of god there's a second one oh yeah i read

00:08:36.140 both of them the second one's much worse michael michael i have been semi-pro hating the title of

00:08:43.380 my bookie wook for so long and i did not know that there was a second one and frankly that's on me

00:08:49.200 So this is describing himself on an airplane.

00:08:54.740 I was thrown off an Iberia Airlines jet at Barcelona Airport after I refused to remove my feet from the top of the seat in front of me.

00:09:04.000 Scruffy people are not welcome in any class other than economy. 1.00

00:09:08.580 If you find a way of affording overpriced travel without dressing like a boffin, it irritates conformists. 1.00

00:09:15.700 Oh, Lord. 1.00

00:09:16.960 So Boffin is like a egghead, like expert kind of thing.

00:09:20.220 If someone's like, I got kicked off of a plane because I irritated conformists.

00:09:24.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:09:25.140 I immediately have a minimum of 20 questions.

00:09:28.540 So then he tells the rest of the story. 1.00

00:09:30.720 I offered the haughty air hostess the perfect chance to tell me off by being a bit drunk and bawdy and lounging about. 1.00

00:09:38.520 She told me off, but I ignored her. 0.98

00:09:40.920 I thought, I wonder what'll happen if no matter what happens, I refuse to cooperate with this woman.

00:09:46.400 I know she was just doing her job, but I sensed she was enjoying being authoritative and we all

00:09:52.160 know just doing my job is the excuse offered up for enacting genocide. She's basically a Nazi for 0.91

00:09:58.460 asking me to put my feet down on an airplane. And for like being drunk and bawdy, which I assume 0.98

00:10:04.560 means like hitting on her while she's at work. It's basically like I was being a huge asshole 1.00

00:10:09.880 and she was a Nazi for telling me to stop. She became increasingly agitated and elicited the 1.00

00:10:14.740 support of the pilot who honestly flung open the cockpit door and had a go at me over his shoulder

00:10:21.260 like a dad chastising naughty daughters on a motoring holiday. I ignored that too. I was in

00:10:28.220 a silly mood. There's like hundreds of people that need to get where they're going but like I was in

00:10:31.940 a silly mood and I didn't want to put my feet down. The pilot made an announcement that because of

00:10:35.800 quote-unquote passenger disruption the flight would not be taking off thereby falling back on

00:10:41.680 a form of psychological warfare constantly deployed against me in childhood where the

00:10:48.160 teacher says because russell's been naughty the whole class has to stay behind in the hope of

00:10:54.080 turning everyone else against you wow dude the investment in persecution here is really fascinating

00:11:01.360 sort of stunning i had a friend in high school who would always just like was constantly getting

00:11:04.780 fired from jobs and every the story was always something totally benign he's like i got fired

00:11:09.520 for being like five minutes late to a meeting and then like oh well what actually happened he's like 1.00

00:11:13.280 i showed up late and my boss was like why are you late and i was like shut up you fucking bitch 0.99

00:11:16.960 i don't think you were fired because you were late to a meeting dude it goes in the same category to 0.99

00:11:23.020 me of like oh this is enough red flags for me to disengage as like someone who complains about work 1.00

00:11:28.980 but just talks about like everyone they work with is an idiot yeah exactly boy it doesn't matter what 0.99

00:11:33.660 job you're at it doesn't matter what role you're in he even after he's like in recovery he's now 1.00

00:11:38.800 sober he can't look at this situation and go man it must have really sucked for the stewardess that

00:11:43.340 day like she's got a drunk passenger who for no reason refuses to do this like extremely basic 0.57

00:11:48.300 thing before takeoff he's still the hero of the story and she is still literally a nazi it's also

00:11:53.380 like feels reminiscent of our like metabolife guy in that there's like zero reckoning with the

00:11:59.960 effects on other people yeah completely i just like to imagine a serene pastoral landscape

00:12:06.560 a cool breeze blowing in the air and just the sound of one giant red flag

00:12:12.720 the other i mean this book is like all fucking red flag anecdotes the other one that like really 0.88

00:12:19.460 stood out to me especially as far as his politics go is apparently when he's very young five six 0.59

00:12:24.540 he's walking around the neighborhood and there's an old guy who sort of stops him and it's like hey

00:12:29.320 i grew some flowers look at look at how nice my front yard looks and then the guy's like hey i

00:12:34.420 got to run inside to like go to the bathroom for a second i'll leave you out here don't stomp on

00:12:38.300 the flowers oh no kind of a weird thing to say honestly whatever i just am gonna flag that my 0.97

00:12:43.860 bullshit meter is already fucking going off here like do we think an adult was like hey don't stomp 0.93

00:12:49.180 on those flowers well thing is i think probably because it's a neighbor he probably knew that 1.00

00:12:53.900 russell was like kind of a troublemaker also i mean he might have said that to any kid or maybe

00:12:58.240 he was joking or something but what's so interesting is russell hears the phrase don't

00:13:03.040 stamp on those flowers. And he's like, well, I have to stamp on the flowers. So the minute the

00:13:06.520 guy goes inside, he just destroys the entire flower bed, like jumping up and down, just like

00:13:11.500 pulverizes all of these flowers. The fact that he's telling this in his book means that like he

00:13:16.180 on some level gets to this as kind of like disordered behavior. Like this is bad, right?

00:13:22.120 But I think also what you find when you watch any of his political videos or you read like anything

00:13:28.220 kind of quote unquote political that he's written, he just hates being told what to do. 0.99

00:13:33.040 He doesn't even want to stomp on the fucking flowers, right? 0.95

00:13:35.020 It's like it's this hollow opposition where if you tell him what to do, he'll do the opposite, even if it makes no sense and he doesn't want to do it. 0.98

00:13:41.860 Yeah. And I think there's something about that that he like comes to believe that that's like a charming thing.

00:13:47.740 Yes. Also, this whole anecdote is like Chekhov's anti-cancel culture turn.

00:13:53.120 Completely. Fast forward fucking 30 years. 0.99

00:13:56.580 And this kid is like, you can't say anything anymore. 0.99

00:13:59.180 So at seven years old, his mom gets cancer. She recovers. The cancer comes back when he's 11.

00:14:08.020 He doesn't really understand sort of the nature of conditions like this. And so he blames himself

00:14:12.240 a little bit and he feels like I'm not able to protect my mom. And so the acting out in school

00:14:17.120 gets significantly worse. She also starts dating a man, Colin, who he doesn't like. He says,

00:14:25.400 i had a growing sense that i was a disappointment to people not only that i wasn't the kind of

00:14:29.780 person my dad would have wanted me to be but also that i wasn't able to look after my mom

00:14:33.920 either to prevent her from getting ill or to stop colin from moving in this guy's 0.96

00:14:38.820 grows to be a real shithead but like for this kid even with like behavior issues even with this 1.00

00:14:47.280 oppositional shit like feeling like you have failed a parent for getting a terminal illness 1.00

00:14:53.540 or for being in a bad relationship is like horrible 0.99

00:14:57.400 and is legitimately like a big thing

00:14:59.440 to figure out how to shake off. 0.99

00:15:01.220 And then he tells the most fucked up story 0.99

00:15:03.960 in the entire book. 0.99

00:15:04.820 Oh no, did I empathize too early?

00:15:07.600 I like haven't checked this in years,

00:15:09.080 but Apple podcast has the thing

00:15:10.720 where they allow you to see

00:15:11.980 where people like stop listening to your podcast,

00:15:14.560 like how many people make it to the end and stuff.

00:15:16.620 I'm so glad I didn't know about this feature, Michael.

00:15:18.860 It bums me out and I never check it,

00:15:20.460 but like I want to check it for this episode

00:15:22.660 because I think we're going to lose like half of the listeners after the story. 0.99

00:15:25.260 This story is so fucked up. 0.99

00:15:27.080 So his dog, the only thing you need to know for this is his dog is named Topsy. 0.99

00:15:31.560 So here's this story. 0.99

00:15:33.420 Oh, God, you're going to make me tell the fucked up story? 0.99

00:15:35.740 You're reading all the slurs. 1.00

00:15:37.220 You're reading all the terrible stories.

00:15:39.220 It's all you.

00:15:40.140 When we first got Topsy, she would be allowed to sleep in the bed with me.

00:15:44.500 But when Colin came, an absurd edict was introduced

00:15:47.800 whereby she was no longer allowed upstairs.

00:15:50.180 I evidently had a lot of anger and hate in me about this because I would perch at the top of

00:15:55.920 the stairs and lure her to come up topsy topsy topsy then when she would slink nervously upward 0.69

00:16:02.900 to the forbidden terrain of the upper floor I would suddenly become Mr. Hyde oh dear topsy I

00:16:09.900 would declaim in a rather arch manner you know perfectly well you're not allowed upstairs 1.00

00:16:14.740 before cruelly kicking her back down to the bottom again where i would rejoin her and give

00:16:21.840 her a sympathetic cuddle regretfully muttering oh christ were you kicked down the stairs this 0.99

00:16:26.620 is terrible holy fuck it's like all there dude yeah on some level it's sympathetic because 0.99

00:16:32.900 you're like he's clearly hurting but also he's lashing out at like this innocent creature i can 1.00

00:16:38.040 understand not wanting to recognize the quote-unquote authority of a fucking stepdad you 0.98

00:16:42.380 don't like i'm like sure fair but i think not even recognizing that like a different person 0.97

00:16:47.680 has different wants yeah being like i'm just gonna respect that this is what this person wants or i'm

00:16:52.540 gonna figure out how to navigate that or whatever i will also say not for nothing i am not alleging 0.86

00:16:58.560 anything about russell brand but like this is on the fucking serial killer checklist yeah i know 0.99

00:17:03.520 this is the fucking dark triad fucking shit so his mom decides to put him in boarding school at this 0.99

00:17:10.140 time he doesn't really specify why i think it's probably because he was acting out in school 1.00

00:17:14.840 and then he immediately starts acting out again he says whenever i'm in any kind of social group

00:17:20.020 i always tend to think i won't fit in and gravitate toward an identity that will stand out

00:17:25.000 so this sort of makes his stand-up persona make a little bit of sense right he's like

00:17:29.640 yeah maybe you won't like me so i'm just gonna like act crazy right and it's all like a shtick

00:17:34.980 right so if you don't like me it's that you don't like the act he then based on this gets like a

00:17:39.580 reputation as like kind of a weirdo and an outcast and so he says another dubious attention

00:17:45.040 seeking device that i invented at the school was the game genital grabbing what a cool fun

00:17:50.660 game for all of us russell brand walked so donald trump could run so he like walks up to people at

00:17:57.280 school and just like grabs their junk i mean outside of their pants it's like the only saving 0.98

00:18:01.360 grace of this but like he starts doing this obviously gets in fucking trouble this is a 0.99

00:18:05.180 boys school or a co-ed co-ed it appears okay jesus fucking great good stuff and then he eventually 0.90

00:18:10.840 gets kicked out of boarding school not for this this is also a very telling thing where he says 0.98

00:18:15.380 he like really wants to like have sex like he's he's getting into his teenage years where he's

00:18:19.200 like post-puberty and he like he says he really wants to like get with girls but at one point he

00:18:23.960 says i didn't want to get with girls as much as i wanted to tell other boys that i was getting with

00:18:29.300 girls boy but he becomes desperate to get laid at this time and so the way that he gets kicked out

00:18:36.080 of boarding school is a whole scenario that he doesn't describe very well but he's like he

00:18:40.140 sneaks into a girl's room to try to hook up but then like her roommate is there and then he sneaks

00:18:44.600 girls into his own room and then his like prefect finds out that the girls in his room and you can't

00:18:50.000 have girls in your room and so he gets kicked out but also what tellingly talking about this

00:18:55.000 prefect like basically the guy that like figured out that he was doing this and busted him he says 0.95

00:18:59.160 children shouldn't be given ss style powers what in the fuck is going on with this dude and 0.91

00:19:05.960 comparing like a flight attendant and a school prefect to nazis yeah there's like that whole 0.99

00:19:15.240 part of the metabolite book where he's talking about how like lawyers have one of the best

00:19:19.080 grifts around or whatever and you're like oh you think everyone is grifting yeah and i think

00:19:24.380 similarly russell brand thinks any boundary that gets set for him is someone who's like drunk with

00:19:31.000 power totally yes it's really telling and i think the other thing is earlier when you said like he

00:19:35.260 wasn't really doing this to impress women but to impress men you and i were talking the other day

00:19:41.100 about sort of looks maxers as like a women optional space right or like actually the point is to

00:19:47.680 create a space that rejects women yeah and you actually just get to relate to other men and like

00:19:53.000 one up other men and women, if present at all, are like tools for that. Like, I think that's 0.97

00:19:59.180 really an undercurrent of like a lot of misogyny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Women are props to display your

00:20:05.040 value to other men. And that's about it. The other interesting thing about his identity is also 1.00

00:20:09.780 the sense of himself as having this kind of threatened masculinity. So after he's kicked

00:20:14.620 out of boarding school, he then goes back to his comprehensive school. He talks a lot about being

00:20:19.620 like really insecure about his appearance he's fat at this point he's getting bullied a lot for

00:20:24.180 being fat and like there's something really interesting about the struggles that russell

00:20:28.200 is having at this time where he is kind of feminine yeah people are calling him gay all

00:20:31.540 the time people are calling him you know fat all the time and his sexuality feels really threatened

00:20:35.900 and i think a lot of what he does for the next like 30 years of his life is like to try to prove

00:20:42.160 to himself and to the rest of the world they're like i'm i'm i'm a man like i i can be a masculine

00:20:47.120 guy i can i can still have sex with girls it can be easy to underestimate how much a constant drum

00:20:53.860 beat of other people's messages about your sexuality shape your own understanding of your 0.64

00:21:00.200 own gender and sexuality right to be constantly made fun of for being gay is like actually gonna 0.99

00:21:07.860 sort of fuck you up whether you're gay or you're straight yeah yeah just in different ways right 0.99

00:21:13.060 He also says that he starts cutting himself at this time. 1.00

00:21:16.480 He gets a really rough eating disorder.

00:21:19.160 He just starts engaging in like pretty hardcore bulimia to lose all of the weight.

00:21:23.380 He also, throughout the book, he sort of mentions various psychiatric assessments that he's had.

00:21:29.140 I mean, you know, he gets arrested later on.

00:21:30.720 And as part of that, he'll go to a psychiatrist or their school psychologist.

00:21:34.720 But it seems like every single mental health professional who has ever seen him in any

00:21:39.520 capacity has said like, you have serious mental illness.

00:21:42.140 he's been diagnosed with depression bipolar ADHD everyone seems to give him a different diagnosis

00:21:48.600 but every page of this book you're like this is an unwell person did any of this come up in the 0.95

00:21:55.240 media around the book dude like when he's doing interviews around this shit are people like hey 0.93

00:22:00.740 bud you okay when the book came out I read a bunch of reviews this was like well reviewed 0.88

00:22:04.460 it's like oh a wild romp through like working class Essex and like trying to become an actor

00:22:09.740 in london but like yeah nobody really pointed out how like super fucked up the stuff in this book is 0.99

00:22:16.120 we're not even to the fucked up shit yet aubrey yeah holy fuck so his big epiphany comes when he 0.99

00:22:21.640 gets a role in the school play he is cast as fat sam in bugsy malone great good the minute he starts 0.99

00:22:29.620 acting he's just like this is it this is what i want to do for the rest of my life yeah i get to

00:22:33.400 pretend to be somebody else great yeah and also he i mean i don't want to sound mean but like he

00:22:37.360 does describe this as like i get to be the center of attention i don't think it's mean to say what's

00:22:41.220 in his book he also starts a pattern that he does throughout the book numerous times he says you

00:22:48.000 know now that i'm acting people have like seen me in the school play i started to get a lot of

00:22:52.420 attention from girls so he's like oh girls were like really into me but then when he actually

00:22:57.140 describes the nature of like girls were really into me it seems to be mostly him pestering women

00:23:02.800 he says i became a school boy tony montana rampaging around the playground indiscriminately

00:23:09.460 spraying girls with chat up lines say hello to my little friend i hollered in canteens and

00:23:14.480 corridors no one was safe for me charged by a white mound of my own newly discovered potency 0.99

00:23:19.740 every female was a potential target no one was safe from me is a dark as fuck line i like stopped

00:23:26.600 copy pasting them eventually there's so much foreshadowing in the book of like the kind of 0.95

00:23:30.640 creep that he turns out to be so he says by my 20s i would relish the challenge of chaste maids

00:23:37.380 and the search for the correct combination of words required to decode their moral resistance 0.85

00:23:42.380 jumping through hoops ducking questions feigning indifference to sex the knobsticle course i call

00:23:48.000 it jesus christ and he had lots of like bits in his stand-up comedy about this like the knobsticle 0.93

00:23:52.240 course thing of basically like how to like kind of trick women into saying yes to having sex with 0.98

00:23:56.680 you yeah this is the guy who thinks that like cutting a hole in the bottom of the popcorn 0.97

00:24:01.160 bucket is like actually a good gag he then describes losing his virginity he is 15 it

00:24:08.400 sounds like it's like a fairly awkward situation he doesn't even like take his clothes off it's

00:24:13.440 with a fellow actor from the play who seems like she's older and more experienced than him

00:24:16.980 it's almost kind of like classic losing your virginity as a teen story where it takes like

00:24:20.120 five minutes and he's like oh i guess that happened but then afterwards i think because

00:24:24.480 he's like not super popular the girl is like hey let's not talk about this like let's let's just

00:24:29.100 act like this never happened and then russell says i blabbed to anyone who'd listen instead

00:24:34.220 of telling no one as requested i told anyone i encountered so he starts blabbing about this

00:24:40.100 this girl marianne denies it she's like no i never had sex with russell what are you talking about

00:24:44.420 right which is because the stakes for him are he's like people will see me as more masculine 0.99

00:24:50.500 and she's like yeah the stakes for me is that i will be fucking slut shamed yeah exactly off the 0.99

00:24:57.020 face of the fucking earth he devises a scheme where he sets up a tape recorder and calls her 1.00

00:25:03.200 and is like hey uh you know how we had sex the other night oh fuck off and then he like gets 0.99

00:25:08.500 her on tape admitting to this but then what's weird that he does this about the book too 0.99

00:25:13.200 he describes this scheme like getting her on tape where she's admitting to them having sex

00:25:17.540 but then he just he never mentions it again it's not clear what he did with the tape did he play

00:25:22.280 it for his friends did he show it to people at school you would think especially from someone

00:25:26.100 who went to sex addiction treatment to be like you know at the time i had these ideas about women

00:25:30.560 that like i was in control and they didn't have any autonomy and it was up to me like

00:25:33.740 some description of like i later learned that this was wrong yeah but he just tells it as like

00:25:39.380 a funny story like ha ha ha this is my losing my virginity story keep making that sound for the

00:25:44.740 Michael, Michael, we're still in his teenage years, Michael.

00:25:52.380 He is now age 16.

00:25:54.220 He gets into an acting school in London.

00:25:56.840 So he moves to London.

00:25:58.400 He then describes again, he says like, oh, I was getting all this attention from girls

00:26:03.060 because like I was at a good school and I was acting.

00:26:05.060 But then when he actually describes the specific girls that he has like flings with, it appears

00:26:09.500 to be him showing like worrying levels of infatuation.

00:26:12.260 So he says, I became obsessed with Louise.

00:26:15.380 I spoke to her recently and she reminded me that I'd sent her up to six letters a day.

00:26:20.460 He also says, Penny, I was so helplessly infatuated with her that I followed her to her home in Wigan at the end of term.

00:26:29.160 So earlier on, you mentioned that he seems to be invested in this in a way that is like in order to sort of prove something or illustrate something to other men.

00:26:38.380 when he talks about being like hopelessly infatuated does he talk about anything

00:26:43.080 about these women that he particularly likes about them or particularly wants about them

00:26:50.460 or whatever you know what i'm about to say he talks about their looks like he talks about like

00:26:54.100 oh this like she she was a radiant creature and like her blonde curls you know it's like

00:26:59.460 physical appearance stuff yeah it's clear that these are like sort of trophies to him or like 0.81

00:27:04.080 conquests like based on their attractiveness so the girl penny he meets her at school she's like

00:27:09.420 oh i'm going home for the holidays he goes oh let me walk you to euston station but like then i'll

00:27:13.020 leave you alone don't worry about it she's like okay you can walk me the station and then he sort

00:27:16.980 of like worms his way onto the train so here's this penny didn't want me to come to her house

00:27:23.320 but i used charm and relentless pig-headed persistence to persuade her i'd pursued her

00:27:29.880 with poetry and promises neither of which were original or true for months i tackled the

00:27:35.660 nobstacle course with such dogged a plum that when night fell i was allowed to sleep in her bed

00:27:41.560 top to toe i spun gags and yarns till she let me turn round i painted verbal pictures and begged

00:27:49.380 until she kissed me i lied and danced and evoked the spirit of pan till reluctantly she removed

00:27:56.700 her bra charming stuff evoke the spirit of pan like that's the kind of stuff that i'm like yeah

00:28:03.080 that sounds like his stand-up act where you're like oh you're just sort of throwing in weird

00:28:08.900 references and thinking that that's like a joke or i know that like makes this okay we're not

00:28:15.260 gonna read them all but this thing happens many times in the book where he's super infatuated

00:28:19.980 with a girl like oh i can't i can't stop thinking about you he's writing you know six letters a day

00:28:24.840 whatever he talks her into sex wears her down and then he never mentions her again yeah so this girl

00:28:31.000 penny is not mentioned for the rest of the book yeah i'm sure he can't stop himself from going to

00:28:35.000 the next infatuation like once he's kind of won like the conquest is over he's had sex with them

00:28:39.660 like he has no more attention for them infatuation may be his language i'm not sure that that's how

00:28:44.380 i would describe it as an outside observer wait what would you say love you think it's pure love

00:28:48.580 you think it's really i think it's true love honestly like the thing that comes to mind is

00:28:54.380 like almost like marks oh yeah yeah right that he's sort of like in it to to win and the winning

00:29:00.600 happens when you have sex and then yeah then the game is over and we're done it's not really

00:29:05.780 infatuation because that implies some level of like attraction to something innate about that

00:29:11.860 person yeah to me it seems much more like like he's just sort of constantly setting personal

00:29:16.320 bests but so uh the next uh bit of lighter fluid that is poured on this dynamic is that he starts

00:29:23.260 doing drugs oh great he discovered uh alcohol when he's like nine or ten him and a friend were going

00:29:29.040 through a sort of supply closet at the school and they found some alcohol and then he drank it and

00:29:33.400 he was like i fucking love this like he took to it immediately it's not clear how much he's drinking

00:29:38.000 because i think it's hard to get a hold of but he talks about how he started smoking weed he says 0.92

00:29:42.900 the first time i went around to jimmy and justin's flat i got so stoned that i went to bed and i was

00:29:47.780 there for three days i didn't eat or anything just lay there bewildered people came to look at me

00:29:52.380 someone took a photograph. I refused all food. I just stared and wondered and became a drug addict.

00:29:57.740 From then on, I smoked weed every day without fail or exception until the narcotic baton was

00:30:02.240 passed on to heroin. Whenever I went to school, or indeed anywhere, I would have a joint first.

00:30:07.820 Many years later, when I eventually got clean, I was astonished to learn that I don't actually

00:30:11.840 enjoy my own company. I always thought I loved being on my own, but actually I don't. It was

00:30:16.520 being on drugs that I liked. Jesus God. So this then creates a pattern where he gets kicked out

00:30:22.040 of acting school for showing up drunk and high all the time he then has like this weird period

00:30:26.340 of sort of like floating about he's only 17 years old at this point him and a friend decide that

00:30:31.240 they're going to put on a play based on the tibetan book of the dead which neither of them have read

00:30:36.860 very good move but they find like a performance space and they start holding auditions and it

00:30:44.260 appears the only reason they're holding auditions is to like get contact with attractive women oh

00:30:49.420 no so he's talking about them here let me just send you this because it's gross thank you so 1.00

00:30:56.160 much you do the gross ones there were two women that were particularly sexy claudine and maria 1.00

00:31:01.600 maria was an asian girl with all this tumbling black hair who turned up in this red dress and 0.99

00:31:08.920 looked impressive and we were just a couple of jerks sat there high okay right this play do you 0.99

00:31:16.160 want to improvise a scene will you do kissing there's lots of kissing and bras the tibetan 1.00

00:31:21.520 book of the dead is full of women kissing in their bras that's what makes it such a fucking 0.61

00:31:25.660 good read cool story it's not like this is almost exactly what like gets him on tv yeah is this kind 0.98

00:31:31.900 of material right it's not like oh this was the dark side that none of us knew about it's like 0.94

00:31:36.860 don't know he was talking about this shit this is also the beginning of a pattern where the minute 0.95

00:31:42.700 he can he starts using his power to get laid right this isn't even that much power it's like i'm 0.99

00:31:47.980 putting on a play i'm like a random guy who's like writing a play and i have a performance space

00:31:51.880 immediately he's using that power to get women in their bras he's how old is he at this point 17 0.96

00:31:58.260 great so he's 17 and he's already doing the fucking weinstein thing it's really shocking 0.94

00:32:04.820 and also telling us about it years later yeah without any like man this was really like how 0.96

00:32:09.620 fucked up this was it's like ha ha ha funny story a thing that i did when i was a kid right this is 0.99

00:32:13.460 like sex criminal super villain fucking shit so the other big thing that happens when russell is 17 1.00

00:32:18.080 is his dad gets divorced from his third wife and wants to go on a sex trip to east asia oh fuck 1.00

00:32:29.740 his dad is a passport bro he's a passport bro dude i've watched enough 90 day fiance to know 1.00

00:32:36.540 all the fuck about this guy apparently the friend that he was going to go with dropped out so he 0.98

00:32:43.220 thinks what if my 17 year old son would like to come with me to asia and go to a bunch of brothels 1.00

00:32:50.560 holy fucking shit they go it appears first to thailand and then to hong kong russell only tells 1.00

00:32:56.900 the story of like the first experience they go to some sort of brothel where there's like a runway 1.00

00:33:02.480 catwalk kind of thing where women are like walking back and forth and you can like pick one you know

00:33:07.420 and so his dad picks two and he picks one named mary lou like part of the issue with passport

00:33:16.160 bros a long digression about why passport bros are bad no why i have this like gnawing pit in

00:33:24.820 my stomach about whatever is about to happen when people are flying halfway around the world to do 0.93

00:33:31.260 that there is often a justification that is like western women are too mouthy oh and like there's 1.00

00:33:39.620 like a cultural expectation of subservience right they've sort of written a series of myths in their 1.00

00:33:44.580 head about like what amounts to if i go to this other country there's a kind of woman who won't

00:33:51.220 say no yeah yeah yeah and there's something extremely dark about a kind of man who wants

00:33:57.280 to engage in what they believe on some level

00:33:59.620 to be like boundary-less sex. 0.99

00:34:01.480 So he chooses one sex worker named Mary Lou. 0.98

00:34:03.700 His dad chooses two sex workers.

00:34:05.680 They go back to their hotel.

00:34:07.420 They're staying at some fancy hotel.

00:34:09.200 Once they get to the room, 0.86

00:34:10.360 they're like fooling around with these women. 0.82

00:34:12.180 He says this. 0.99

00:34:14.240 Naked.

00:34:15.260 I was shy about my body then.

00:34:17.660 I had trouble getting hard. 0.99

00:34:19.000 The blowjob seemed daft the way it feels 1.00

00:34:21.700 when a customs official pulls your trousers down 1.00

00:34:24.480 or a doctor puts his finger up your arse. 1.00

00:34:27.280 not sexual, just giggly and intrusive. So it's clearly kind of uncomfortable. 1.00

00:34:32.800 Not sexual, just giggly and intrusive is how I would describe a lot of Russell Brand's

00:34:38.000 sort of vibe. Yeah, Jesus Christ. She was a good prostitute, Mary Lou. She played her part very

00:34:43.680 well. She didn't make me feel embarrassed and was incredibly romantic, really, given the context.

00:34:49.560 I stroked Mary Lou's hair and kissed her cheek and traced my finger down her perfect nose,

00:34:54.460 scored by the cacophony from the adjacent bedlam yeah come on and you're juicy so he's listening 1.00

00:35:02.560 to his dad have sex with sex workers next door as he's having sex god jesus god and he he clearly 0.99

00:35:10.840 is like impressed by his dad he describes this as in this like aspirational way of just like 1.00

00:35:17.060 oh someday i'll be as cool as my dad yeah but like this is unbelievable fucking loser behavior 1.00

00:35:22.400 Before there was Andrew Tate, there were fuck off dads like this. 1.00

00:35:26.820 Here's the next morning. 0.99

00:35:28.460 He comes up the next morning.

00:35:29.200 His dad is like reading the newspaper at the breakfast table.

00:35:32.280 My dad, concealed behind a newspaper, folded down the top right hand corner. 0.78

00:35:37.480 Did you wear a condom with that bird last night?

00:35:40.300 Oh no, I didn't, dad. 0.95

00:35:42.380 He sniffed, you should have.

00:35:44.340 Then the corner of the page flicked up once again and he was gone. 0.99

00:35:48.440 In the course of the rest of that holiday, I fucked loads more prostitutes, 0.99

00:35:52.960 always got a hard-on, never wore a condom, and never fell in love. 1.00

00:35:56.780 Cool. 0.96

00:35:57.000 In Bangkok, when bar girls in Pat Pong left their posts to follow me down the street,

00:36:02.660 cooing and touching my hair, I felt that I had my dad's unequivocal approval. 0.99

00:36:08.460 Fucking Jesus God. 0.99

00:36:11.260 There are many memoirs that include, like, kind of disturbing stories. 0.99

00:36:14.240 and then a person's like i went into recovery and i learned and i don't do this anymore whatever but

00:36:18.480 like there's no moment of reflection on this yeah so the fact that he's like i never wore a condom

00:36:22.960 it's like wow cool man why yeah cool story bro what a good thing to put in your memoir about

00:36:29.920 sex addiction i mean like i guess so then he gets back to london he gets into another acting school

00:36:36.860 he then gets kicked out of that too i don't really know what it takes to get kicked out of acting

00:36:41.960 school like not to say that it's not like a serious endeavor or whatever but just like i

00:36:47.520 genuinely don't know what conduct he says he shows up drunk every day oh he drinks before school and

00:36:53.560 then he's like hammered that would do it this is like too much because we already dislike this guy 0.99

00:36:57.260 but like god this either is fake or it's real and fuck off so here's this for he's talking about 0.98

00:37:04.660 when he's uh in this period like post uh drama school post getting kicked out of drama school 0.99

00:37:09.280 number two one of my brilliant gimmicks was to have a mouse living in my hair he's doing a

00:37:15.460 ratatouille i know maybe this explains the rest of his career maybe it's actually just the mouse

00:37:19.980 is in charge i kept this going for quite a long time at least a month or so i'd gone out and got

00:37:26.320 a mouse from a pet shop and let it live on my shoulders and in my hair mice are incontinent

00:37:33.240 they poo and wee whenever they feel like it so my hair was all full of mouse excrement and urine

00:37:39.680 i'd put it in a little tupperware box when i went to sleep so i hope this is fake if this is real 0.77

00:37:46.820 this is like one of those pathetic like attention getting things i've ever heard in my life jesus 0.95

00:37:51.740 fucking hell surely you could just get attention from people by being like nice to them this is 0.99

00:37:56.780 absolutely the kind of behavior that would uh make me avoid being around a person yeah not 0.98

00:38:03.100 necessarily because of the mouse not necessarily because of mouse smell not necessarily because of

00:38:07.520 any of that kind of well because for me it would be because of the mouse and the mouse smell but

00:38:10.760 okay no but just because of like the level of red flag that is like i know this person thinks this

00:38:15.860 is how you engage with other people and like i don't want to be engaged in these kinds of ways

00:38:22.540 by a person. So I'm just going to give them a real wide berth. I think this is like the only

00:38:27.460 way that he knows how to relate to people is like, people kind of gawking at him or be like, 0.86

00:38:31.320 wow, you're so you're so wild and crazy, Russell. Yeah. And in that way, the sort of like,

00:38:36.220 very like, Hollywood experience of like, sort of having an entourage, but maybe not necessarily

00:38:42.580 having friends, I would think might suit him. We then have a period where he's dropped out of

00:38:48.260 acting school he's getting kind of odd jobs he starts doing like stand-up open mic nights he

00:38:55.840 joins a comedy duo he does a couple performances at the edinburgh fringe festival he's at like the

00:39:00.820 very early stages of kind of like making it as an actor slash comedian he also starts doing heroin

00:39:06.760 at this time we also have in 1999 toward the end of this period we have the first alleged uh rape 0.87

00:39:13.800 by russell brand what a cool fucking guy there's i believe seven rape allegations at this point

00:39:17.920 that he's on trial for and so as we're going i'm going to sort of put them in the chronology 0.97

00:39:22.360 i mean i should say that he denies all these allegations categorically he says yes i was a

00:39:27.120 sex addict but everything 100 was consensual so we need to get that on the record in the uk they

00:39:32.380 don't seem to release indictment documents with like details of any of the charges so literally

00:39:39.720 all we have is one sentence brand of oxfordshire is accused of raping a woman in a hotel room

00:39:46.260 while she attended a labor party conference in bournemouth in 1999 that's the entirety of the

00:39:51.560 charge jesus i guess from these stand-up comedy gigs he then gets noticed by mtv and in 2001

00:39:58.440 he gets like a segment on mtv called dance floor chart where like he goes around to nightclubs

00:40:06.260 and interviews people he then gets fired from mtv in late 2001 the way that he tells this story

00:40:16.480 he goes to work and he's fiending for drugs so he invites his drug dealer to the set of mtv

00:40:24.360 and then the drug dealer brings his like eight-year-old son because he's like oh i'm going

00:40:29.620 to mtv like my kid likes mtv i'll bring my kid with me and then russell brand and this guy

00:40:34.880 apparently smoke crack in the bathroom in front of the kid according to him you know he's high

00:40:42.320 walking around this drug dealer is also high it's the same day as kylie minogue is like filming an

00:40:48.080 interview or a segment or something so kylie minogue is around and he walks up to kylie

00:40:53.100 minogue with his drug dealer and he's like meet grant or whatever the guy's name is and he like

00:40:58.380 introduces kylie minogue to his drug dealer and he's like and the next day they fired me

00:41:04.540 but he does mention this but he doesn't really get into it the actual reason that he got fired

00:41:10.180 i was gonna say what are the chances that there was zero sex pesting from russell brand no it

00:41:16.220 actually isn't a sex pest thing aubrey what if you go to his like wikipedia entry and he does

00:41:20.980 mention this in his book but in this weird cursory way this story is taking place on september 12th 0.76

00:41:27.120 2001 and he is dressed as osama bin laden what in the fuck so like he does say this here i'm 0.53

00:41:36.660 gonna send it to you i was dressed in a white muslim tunic with matching white bottoms a 0.92

00:41:42.040 camouflage flak jacket a false beard and a tea towel on my head held in place by a shoelace

00:41:49.240 cool i'd been aware of osama bin laden for about a year he wasn't someone who people of my age

00:41:55.120 group generally knew about but he'd been involved with some other bombings and he was top of the

00:42:00.360 fbi's most wanted list and i was fascinated by that sort of stuff that day i was going to present

00:42:07.100 this program called select where kids phoned in and chose videos for us to play and pop stars

00:42:13.160 would come on to flog their records that afternoon our guest was to be kylie minogue and then he like

00:42:19.380 tells the kylie minogue story i'm stealing this from the on-brand podcast which is an entire

00:42:24.020 podcast about how much russell brand sucks which is very enjoyable but like kylie minogue has met

00:42:28.940 drug dealers before kylie minogue has met weird people backstage at things like the kylie minogue

00:42:33.780 thing has nothing to do with you getting fired right kylie minogue probably had like a two-minute 0.97

00:42:37.140 conversation with this guy i was like well gotta go like i don't think kylie minogue fucking like 0.98

00:42:41.880 reported russell brand i think you got fired because you dressed as fucking osama bin lan 0.97

00:42:46.260 the day after september 11th well and also like you dressed in such a way as to like make manifest 1.00

00:42:52.720 a fucking slur yeah yeah yeah you put a towel on your head you fucking asshole he doesn't give any 1.00

00:42:58.800 explanation for why you did this it's the day after 9 11 you're dressing as the killer why 1.00

00:43:04.060 like oh i've been aware of him for a year and like he did some crimes and i knew about him

00:43:07.480 and also he was presenting a children's show there's no description of why he did this or

00:43:12.440 what he was even trying to do i think it was again just this like i put a mouse in my hair

00:43:17.200 like i wanted to get attention kind of thing i don't know man like the day after they capture 0.96

00:43:21.140 the fucking golden state killer are you going on tv dressing up like that guy so the only other 0.91

00:43:26.700 thing we know of that takes place in 2001 is another alleged attempted rape this is also from 0.99

00:43:32.780 the charging document he is charged with indecently assaulting a woman by grabbing her arm and dragging

00:43:37.800 her toward a male toilet in 2001 that is the entirety of the information that we have he then

00:43:42.700 gets fired from mtv and then he almost immediately gets another job he gets uh another kind of like

00:43:48.780 man on the street interview show on a like now defunct cable channel my god stop giving him this

00:43:56.200 specific job i know how do we expose him to the most people possible he says together we contrive

00:44:03.560 to take on taboos have a fight with your dad to examine the idea of an oedipus complex have a

00:44:09.760 bath with a homeless person get to know a member of the british national party to see what they're

00:44:14.800 like and seduce an old woman what and like these are like little stunts that he does he ends up 0.94

00:44:19.760 like jerking off a man they're all just props yeah yeah right for him to do an outrageous thing

00:44:25.760 that is i mean i do think that's core to the ideology it's just like these are taboos yeah 0.98

00:44:30.320 but he doesn't seem to have any kind of like basic moral compass because one of the episodes

00:44:33.420 is about hanging out with this guy who's part of the british national party which is like basically

00:44:37.260 the uk nazis but in his brain it's like well it's taboo to be nice to a homeless person and it's

00:44:42.360 taboo to be in like a super racist political party. It feels like a house with no foundation.

00:44:46.780 Yeah. He's not meaningfully on the left or meaningfully on the right, no matter how he

00:44:50.340 shows up, because there's not like a foundational thing that he's tied to. Right. Right. There's not

00:44:55.020 like a core driving morality underneath it. It's just, oh, you don't want me to do this.

00:45:00.340 So then at the end of 2002, he finally gets sober. He's like drinking every day,

00:45:04.780 using drugs every day. Eventually he goes into rehab. He doesn't say that much about it. He

00:45:08.480 just like goes into inpatient rehab it seems to work and he's sober for the rest of his life

00:45:12.980 according to him does he mention anything about staying in recovery spaces like does he go to

00:45:19.780 meetings he's really into 12 steps oh okay he wrote a book called recovery that is kind of like

00:45:25.460 part of his wellness pivot it has 12 chapters and each chapter is like one of the steps so he's like

00:45:30.080 very much a 12 step guy the reason that i ask is there's this concept in aa of like the dry drunk

00:45:36.340 which is someone who's like not drinking but also not dealing with the shit that made them drink in

00:45:41.220 the first place yeah based on what we know comes next it just seems like that might be part of the

00:45:47.520 picture it's actually really interesting because he he's fairly open in the book about the fact

00:45:52.440 that getting sober makes him worse with women he says once i started to feel a bit more confident

00:45:57.880 and realized there was now a great gaping hole in my life that wasn't filled by drugs and booze

00:46:02.620 anymore, my tendency to pursue women, which had always been quite rapacious, somehow became

00:46:07.420 enhanced further. I started seeing different women, quickly acquiring a harem of about 10 0.86

00:46:12.580 whom I would rotate in addition to one night stands and random casual encounters.

00:46:17.740 Boy, there's nothing quite so chilling as a white man referring to a harem.

00:46:21.980 And also, how are you, how are you doing this to, I mean, 10 people and also one night stands?

00:46:28.560 Do you think that's real?

00:46:29.480 oh yeah okay and if you read the accounts of his accusers he has this like urgency about sex and 0.91

00:46:36.240 oftentimes he'll have a couple women in one night it's not like you come over and you have sex with 0.92

00:46:40.620 russell brandon you cuddle and you watch a movie it's like he kicks you out or sometimes he will 0.99

00:46:45.060 invite over another woman while you're there this is gay men territory what are you doing it's really 0.99

00:46:50.220 even as a gay man i'm like this is you're fucking unwell no totally so that is 2002 when he gets 0.99

00:46:54.940 sober one of the uh rapes he's accused of is in 2004 the met police say in 2004 a woman was orally 0.99

00:47:02.780 raped and sexually assaulted in the westminster area of london that's basically all of the

00:47:07.520 information that we have there's something about this like lack of detail on like one sentence that 0.81

00:47:12.080 is so fucking chilling to me there's another one i believe also in 2004 that says he is also alleged 0.69

00:47:17.640 to have grabbed a radio station worker's face pushed her against a wall and kissed her before 0.99

00:47:23.180 groping her breasts and buttocks. In the exposé about him that was published in 2023,

00:47:29.980 they talked to a female comedian who knew him on the comedy scene. A female comedian said that in

00:47:35.640 the early 2000s, when they gigged together, Brand chased her around backstage and bit her on the

00:47:40.720 face. Whenever he saw me, he would grab me and bite my face. And it was coupled with this weird,

00:47:46.420 horrible energy, she recalls. I said to him, I don't like this. And he still did it so much

00:47:51.820 before he stopped it was him crossing boundaries it's so dark because i think his way of relating

00:47:57.560 to himself is to interpret all of his actions as sort of playful yeah yeah biting someone's face 0.99

00:48:03.040 is an unhinged thing to do also imagine someone doing that to you with a mouse in their fucking 0.99

00:48:08.040 hair oh it makes it worse somehow you're like oh drunk mouse in hair hair smells like mouse 1.00

00:48:15.500 piss and shit so in 2005 that's when he goes to sex addiction treatment yeah uh this is where his 0.99

00:48:22.000 first book ends the book is really strange in that he goes to sex addiction treatment and then he 0.99

00:48:27.620 just publishes verbatim excerpts from his diary that he kept when he was there and they're kind

00:48:32.600 of all over the place there's a section where he says like oh the most the worst thing about being

00:48:37.120 in rehab is that i really miss sarah but he hasn't mentioned sarah that's the first mention 0.97

00:48:41.380 who is sarah i guess that's the woman he's dating but it's like does anyone edit these fucking books 0.69

00:48:45.800 like they're just this person that he misses and then he mentions that she's 19 they were fighting 0.94

00:48:51.620 he says that he like smashed a glass and then was like sort of using the shards to pretend that he

00:48:58.760 was going to cut his wrists pretend is doing some heavy lifting there but again this is just in his

00:49:04.020 diary entry so you're like is this in the book or something else what what and of course she's

00:49:10.120 never mentioned again the book ends with him like oh i went through sex addiction rehab but then all

00:49:15.420 he says is after keystone i did continue to have sex with adult human females but i made sure it

00:49:21.520 didn't interfere with my work that was the point of concern so he ends with this like oh i learned

00:49:26.800 all my lessons none of which i'm gonna actually explain at the end of this book he then starts 0.97

00:49:30.280 book two fucking bookie wook two he starts book two by bragging about the time he fucked kate moss 0.99

00:49:37.000 Well, again, like if the point is to prove your worth to other men, the thing that matters is that you had sex with a woman who is famous for being beautiful. 0.99

00:49:47.180 We're now entering the point where he starts to become much more famous.

00:49:51.340 He gets a gig as a big brother commentator in 2005.

00:49:56.920 Sure.

00:49:57.220 Very talking dead territory.

00:49:59.620 One of the only things I laughed at in his book, he's talking about this big brother.

00:50:03.200 It's called Big Brother's Big Mouth.

00:50:04.620 He says, I worked on the show for three years, which encompassed seven seasons.

00:50:09.640 Great. 0.98

00:50:10.440 I fucking love reality TV. 1.00

00:50:12.940 Fucking reality show. 1.00

00:50:14.340 It's so weird. 1.00

00:50:15.440 Unhinged. 1.00

00:50:15.740 Just like, just churn through a man. 1.00

00:50:18.120 Who cares?

00:50:19.160 He also, a thing that really rockets him to fame, and a thing that he's been very good

00:50:23.180 at doing throughout his career, is riding controversies into more fame and more notoriety.

00:50:29.420 So in 2006, he hosts the NME Awards, which is like a music magazine, music awards.

00:50:36.580 The New Music Express, I believe.

00:50:38.680 First of all, he goes through some of his jokes for the awards show.

00:50:43.480 He says that the band The Strokes is attending.

00:50:48.460 For context, the lead singer of The Strokes is named Julian Casablanca.

00:50:52.040 Yes.

00:50:52.460 I guess he's in the midst of saying like, The Strokes are here.

00:50:56.320 He says, oh, my nan had a stroke.

00:50:59.000 I think that's what killed her.

00:51:00.680 What was Julian Casablanca's thinking? 1.00

00:51:02.800 She was 90 years old and she was a lesbian. 0.99

00:51:06.260 What? 1.00

00:51:06.860 That's the joke.

00:51:07.860 The strokes.

00:51:08.700 That's the whole, that's the joke.

00:51:12.060 Again, the cadence of humor.

00:51:14.760 I know.

00:51:16.140 Delivered with a thick accent from a guy doing a ratatouille.

00:51:20.720 He then introduces Bob Geldof, who's like a legendary music actor guy.

00:51:26.220 I know him from being the lead of Pink Floyd's The Wall, which I saw like 400 times when I was

00:51:31.520 in eighth grade. This is his introduction to Bob Geldof. This is Russell Brand. He says,

00:51:37.020 the winner of best DVD is Bob Geldof. My best DVD is Big Natural Tits 10 in a welcome return

00:51:43.900 to form after the lazy and derivative Big Natural Tits 8 and 9. Of course, we ain't really captured

00:51:50.880 the glory days of big national tits one and two don't be ridiculous but all this is academic 0.96

00:51:56.280 because the big natural tit series has been overlooked again here's sir bobby gandalf 0.68

00:52:02.460 introduces him but then bob geldoff comes up and he just like leans he starts out he just 0.97

00:52:09.020 leans at the microphone he says russell brand what a cunt yeah good job good job it's also 0.90

00:52:14.700 sort of the shortcoming of this kind of like edgelord era of humor which is just like you 0.98

00:52:21.060 don't actually have to have a joke yeah sort of like his earlier stuff the point is just like oh

00:52:25.580 it's taboo so i'm gonna say yeah that's not a joke yeah a joke takes craftsmanship a joke takes

00:52:33.200 subversion of expectation are you talking about how sophisticated you were for using the sound

00:52:37.620 board on this podcast what is this a friend gave me a corporate jargon one

00:52:55.080 that's good let's put a pin in that let's circle back to that that is sophisticated you're right

00:53:01.280 aubrey it takes dedication that's a no-brainer what's standing out to me about this that i find

00:53:07.520 really fascinating is it's sort of a referendum on russell brand of course and it should be

00:53:14.180 but it's also sort of like a pretty good reflection of like an era that enabled a generation of 0.91

00:53:20.280 assholes like this yeah yeah right like this is also the era of uh adam carolla don imus yeah 0.99

00:53:28.120 all of these like fucking dickweed edgelord assholes who were just like uh i'm gonna say 1.00

00:53:35.080 the most shocking thing possible and it would often be about shit that was like taboo for a 1.00

00:53:40.740 fucking reason oh are you mad i guess you're mad about this and then you get to do the whole 0.99

00:53:44.500 fucking shtick where you're like they're all mad at me again oh my god and he also gets a chat show 0.99

00:53:51.420 on mtv around this time and becomes the kind of person who just like shows up at things he's 0.99

00:53:55.480 presenting this thing. He's presenting that thing. This also dovetails with the abuse allegations.

00:54:01.680 In 2023, we get the article reporting on all these kind of like specific women who allege 0.98

00:54:07.420 abuse. But then we also get allegations that he was using his contacts at the BBC and at Channel

00:54:14.020 4 to recruit audience members from these shows and like send them backstage. It says TV researchers

00:54:21.780 and runners who worked on Channel 4 shows during this period alleged that Brand would get staff to

00:54:26.260 approach young female audience members so he could meet them after filming. Another kind of later in

00:54:32.920 the article, it says, Brand would regularly have sex with women he met at events. Two who went back

00:54:37.940 to his home on separate occasions claim he became threatening and shouted at them when they refused

00:54:42.620 to have intercourse with him. One left his home in tears. So we yet again see this pattern where

00:54:47.780 he's like using his power to like systematically recruit women to have sex with allegedly yeah so

00:54:54.300 this is also like the mid 2000s which means that the response to this kind of media would have been

00:55:00.240 like wow it looks like those women made some bad choices there's also in december of 2007 0.97

00:55:04.920 somebody makes a complaint about quote an alarming display of aggression and disrespect

00:55:11.120 which included brand hurling objects across the studio in fits of rage and quote urinating in a

00:55:18.660 bottle in full view of everyone sorry this is after he gets sober yeah that's actually super

00:55:24.660 fascinating to me a lot of these anecdotes are basically like what other people would describe

00:55:28.040 as their rock bottom i'm like the time i pissed in a cup i'm sure in front of staff at 100 rock

00:55:34.980 bottoms yeah yeah yep yep yep so there is after these uh abuse allegations the article detailing

00:55:41.460 the abuse allegations come out bbc and channel 4 both launched like retrospective investigations

00:55:47.220 to be like did we get complaints like was there a systematic failure here the bbc says they only

00:55:53.700 received three complaints during his time at the bbc and they weren't followed up on however

00:56:00.680 However, the person who led the investigation also said the BBC did not maintain a centralized

00:56:05.880 record of staff complaints regarding bullying and harassment, including sexual harassment

00:56:10.220 at the time.

00:56:11.480 So basically, they haven't found anything, but also they weren't keeping records of

00:56:14.200 anything.

00:56:14.820 God, imagine living in a media environment where the media goes, wait a minute, did we

00:56:20.360 have a hand in this?

00:56:21.440 Or like, or like, did we write this down?

00:56:23.340 Is there something we should have done differently here?

00:56:26.240 I'm going to send this to you and I might cut it.

00:56:27.680 This is from the period when he's doing his MTV show where he's interviewing like fairly big celebrities.

00:56:32.980 Like he interviews like Tom Cruise and stuff.

00:56:35.000 And so here is him talking about a celebrity encounter.

00:56:38.440 Neil brought Courtney Love with him, who is a mad enchantress, a rasping white witch, barmy and opinionated and lion hearted. 0.99

00:56:47.840 more interesting than her lion heart though is her vagina which has been referred to as magic 0.99

00:56:54.480 in that it has a mythical power to bestow stardom and heavenly gifts upon those who enter a kind of 0.99

00:57:02.280 blarney fanny lord alone knows many a famous man has emerged from its confines some of whom surely 0.91

00:57:10.440 must have been famous on the way in jesus fucking christ he he later says like oh we had a nice time 0.86

00:57:16.860 she's a nice person we became friends so this is him talking about like a woman he holds in high 0.98

00:57:21.820 esteem yeah i mean mike what do you expect he's saying her vagina is good what higher praise is 0.96

00:57:28.860 there than that am i not supposed to say this when i talk about you yeah like tell me tell me about 1.00

00:57:35.160 your co-host i'm like well let's start with her vagina and work our way outward blarney vagina 1.00

00:57:40.840 how do you describe my vagina workshop it fellas 0.99

00:57:47.260 is it gay to describe your co-host's vagina it's actually not problematic because i am gay 1.00

00:57:54.380 i'm allowed to describe your vagina it's gay not to 1.00

00:57:57.000 god what a fucking twerp okay so this is like the hardest transition of the whole show we're 1.00

00:58:04.160 like giggly and stuff we now have to talk about the 16 year old that he dated uh and allegedly 1.00

00:58:10.400 the orally raped if it's a 16 year old what's the age of consent in the uk unfortunately 16 so it 0.97

00:58:16.460 was not illegal shit i'm saying well i'm saying unfortunate also because i don't like knowing 0.97

00:58:21.720 what the ages of consent are in places because anyone who can like rattle off like oh iowa that's 0.71

00:58:26.940 17 you're like no i don't want to be the guy who can answer your question yeah exactly like but

00:58:32.040 like overhearing a conversation at a restaurant like oh actually it's 16 in the uk i think

00:58:35.900 But no.

00:58:38.520 It's actually a feebophilia.

00:58:40.800 That's the energy.

00:58:41.940 So this is from, I keep mentioning this, but there's a very good investigation by the Sunday Times, the Times of London, and Channel 4, which produces a long investigative article and also a documentary.

00:58:51.580 This is a four-year investigation where they interview, it appears to be like dozens to hundreds of people about various allegations throughout Russell Brand's career.

00:58:59.080 This is a woman who they are calling Alice in the article, who is 16 when she meets Russell Brand in 2006.

00:59:06.980 She has just recovered from an eating disorder, and she has never had a boyfriend.

00:59:11.820 And here is her description of how it started.

00:59:15.140 He approached her in Leicester Square after she had been shopping at Topshop at Oxford Circus, and he had been working at a nearby studio.

00:59:24.060 Alice recognized him from TV and had previously seen him do stand-up.

00:59:28.300 he took my shopping bags from me which was quite disarming and proceeded to go through my purchases

00:59:34.020 and critique them and then he took one dress out and said to me you're going to wear this on our 0.98

00:59:40.060 date this week she recalls fucking hell so again you see this extremely aggressive way of hitting 0.97

00:59:48.000 on women right but also like when you're 16 dude i know i know you don't know that this dude is like 0.98

00:59:54.900 actively dangerous to you necessarily yet in your life there's then this period where it's like he's

01:00:01.540 acutely aware of her age and how inappropriate this is so he asked her to read lolita which is

01:00:07.660 a really fucking weird detail he asked her to put himself in her phone as carly so that in case her 0.99

01:00:13.600 parents check her phone or something they don't find like a man's name holy fucking shit he coaches 0.99

01:00:19.540 her on what to say to her parents he also sends a car to her high school to like pick her up and 0.99

01:00:26.740 take her to his house and there's this heartbreaking scene where like the driver of the car this is

01:00:32.160 like russell brand's professional driver pulls up to his house and like begs her not to get out of

01:00:37.300 the car he's like i have a daughter your age you don't want to go into that house this is you know 0.70

01:00:43.160 to borrow a fucking very law and ordery phrase this is like evidence of premeditation right yeah 0.79

01:00:48.960 This is someone who knows that what he's doing will not be viewed in a kind light. 0.98

01:00:53.380 Yeah.

01:00:53.700 This is someone who is actively engaged in, like, regardless of the age of consent in a given place. 1.00

01:01:00.960 This is fucking grooming behavior. 1.00

01:01:03.080 Read Lolita. 1.00

01:01:04.240 She alleges that he orally raped her as part of the relationship. 0.99

01:01:08.600 And she basically was like, stop, stop, stop. 0.99

01:01:10.280 She had to hit him to get him off of her. 0.96

01:01:13.460 There's then this paragraph, which is absolutely fucking insane. 0.98

01:01:17.880 Oh, Michael. 0.91

01:01:18.960 This is how it ended.

01:01:20.140 The relationship ended when Brand invited her over one day

01:01:23.980 and she arrived to find another woman in his bed.

01:01:27.800 I was so angry and I said to him,

01:01:30.620 why would you do this to me?

01:01:32.420 This is so humiliating.

01:01:34.320 It's either totally just reckless

01:01:35.640 and like you're in some sort of mania

01:01:37.280 and you don't really realize what you're doing 0.99

01:01:38.740 or it's deliberately like I'm too chicken shit 0.99

01:01:40.700 to break up with this person 0.97

01:01:41.720 and so I'm going to create this like horrible scene 0.99

01:01:43.900 so that she has to break up with me.

01:01:45.800 It's also like not for nothing.

01:01:47.740 And it is kind of nuts that he does dress like a cartoon villain. 0.99

01:01:51.380 To be fair, he has been telling us very loudly who he fucking is for his entire career. 0.99

01:01:56.160 For a real long time. 0.99

01:01:57.740 Yep, totally. 1.00

01:01:59.000 We also, this is like now the fucking sexual assault montage. 0.99

01:02:02.560 It wasn't before? 0.99

01:02:04.180 No, this is where it gets really bad.

01:02:05.620 So in 2007, he was allegedly in a relationship with somebody named Jordan Martin,

01:02:12.560 who wrote a book in 2014 about being in an abusive relationship.

01:02:16.720 It's called Not, Entanglement with a Celebrity.

01:02:20.120 And in the book, she calls him Randall Grand.

01:02:22.800 She's elsewhere said that this was based on Russell Brand.

01:02:25.380 Schmushel Schman.

01:02:26.540 Yeah, basically, yeah. 0.99

01:02:27.820 And she alleges, like, him sexually assaulting her and cheating on her and a bunch of, like, really awful shit in this book. 0.99

01:02:34.580 Sounds like our guy. 0.95

01:02:35.880 Yeah, and then when the allegations come out in 2023, she's like, I don't want to be interviewed, but I stand by the book.

01:02:40.380 We then, in 2008, have this incident.

01:02:45.320 the woman who we are calling olivia worked for a media company in the same building as the bbc's

01:02:52.100 los angeles office on 16th of june 2008 she says she answered the door to brand and his team

01:02:59.400 who were there to pre-record an episode of the russell brand show for radio 2

01:03:03.860 she then went to the bathroom to get some sinus medication while squatting to look through the 0.98

01:03:09.480 medicine cabinet she says she felt someone behind her fucking hell yeah she turned around to face 0.99

01:03:16.280 a man's crotch i was startled and got up and i realized it was russell she says he told her he 0.99

01:03:22.980 was going to call her betty when she what that's weird when she said that wasn't her name she says 1.00

01:03:29.200 he replied well i'm gonna fuck you and i said no you're not she says he then pulled out his penis 1.00

01:03:35.780 on his hand and quote pretty much served it to me as you would be serving someone some food 1.00

01:03:42.280 she says the door to the bathroom was closed and she felt trapped olivia says he then put his penis 0.99

01:03:50.020 back in his trousers and she heard someone banging on the door she says someone from his team called 0.99

01:03:57.160 for him at which point brand left jesus fucking christ it's like having a dog that needs to be 0.99

01:04:04.240 on a fucking leash this woman olivia texts a friend and she's like uh fucking russell brand 0.99

01:04:08.900 just like whipped his dick out in the bathroom good for olivia and he goes i know they're talking 1.00

01:04:14.060 about it live on the air what they're like joking on air one of his co-hosts says it's been 25 0.99

01:04:21.660 minutes since he showed his willy to anyone and brand is like laughing he's like easy for you to 0.98

01:04:26.300 judge boy oh fucking so this is like a bit within like 15 fucking minutes it's a fucking bit on the 0.99

01:04:31.500 air i i don't even know how to fucking process this shit and also everyone every it's so extreme 0.99

01:04:37.580 i think everyone assumes it has to be a joke i guess what a lothario that's like that's the 0.99

01:04:43.400 persona that he was able to cultivate but it like was not a fucking persona there are lots of like 0.98

01:04:47.680 real dipshit dumb guy parts of uh of american media and political landscapes one of them really 0.98

01:04:54.840 is like boy oh boy the degree to which we get charmed by a british accent and allow i know 0.99

01:05:00.300 huge terrible fucking behavior so the final episode that we are going to talk about before 0.95

01:05:05.400 we close are you familiar with saxgate is this when winona rider did her shoplifting no it's uh 0.99

01:05:11.580 andrew sax i know this name why do i know this name you're you're like a uk comedy nerd you

01:05:16.140 watched faulty towers growing up right oh sure i was like obsessed with faulty towers when i was a

01:05:20.940 kid so the guy who plays manuel on faulty towers is named andrew sax oh okay he is in 2008 kind of

01:05:29.340 like an elder statesman kind of guy he's like an old guy kind of shows up on tv in various times

01:05:33.720 and so there is an incident where he is supposed to show up on the radio show of russell brand and

01:05:42.420 jonathan ross oh boy so at the time russell brand is hosting a morning zoo kind of situation i don't

01:05:49.560 think it's on in the mornings but it's like that kind of vibe you know like a bunch of dudes and

01:05:53.340 it's kind of like zany and there's like sound effects and shit oh i'm so sorry do you mean

01:05:58.220 soundboard energy i know i was trying not to say the word because i knew you'd get 0.61

01:06:03.540 you'd get inspired i'm at capacity let's take that offline this is the worst soundboard aubrey

01:06:11.760 it's really not good and i love it that's kind of what i love the most about it that's a no-brainer

01:06:17.360 so this andrew sacks guy is supposed to be on russell brand's radio show for whatever reason

01:06:24.840 he cancels and so they do a bit where they call his answering machine and they talk to his 0.99

01:06:31.900 answering machine i have a vague recollection about this where they are like fucking sex pests 0.99

01:06:40.060 about his daughter or something granddaughter yes creep fucking city the thing is i was gonna skip 0.99

01:06:46.300 this because that's so it's just a very weird controversy for reasons we will get into but 0.97

01:06:51.200 people in the uk say like you cannot underestimate how fucking big of a deal this was this was like

01:06:56.400 literally front page news for like months this was a massive scandal at the time yeah

01:07:00.780 so we are going to read a transcript of the answering machine message uh so i am going to

01:07:08.160 send you this transcript you are going to be russell brand oh i'm gonna be jonathan ross

01:07:12.600 because i know if i made you jonathan ross you try to do the voice no i would not try to do the

01:07:17.520 voice hello andrew sacks this is russell brand you are meant to be on my show now mate i'm here

01:07:25.020 with jonathan ross i could still do the interview to your answer phone let's do it man or andrew 0.93

01:07:31.480 sacks don't call him manuel that's really bad manners i apologize for russell he's an idiot

01:07:36.080 i said andrew sacks look andrew sacks i have got respect for you and your lineage and your 0.90

01:07:41.560 progeny never let that be questioned don't hint i weren't hinting why did that come across as a 0.99

01:07:48.220 hint because you know what you did that wasn't a hint he fucked your granddaughter jesus fucking 0.99

01:07:54.440 christ cute stuff so cute what what a couple of little rogues so we find out it was not clear at 0.99

01:08:00.900 the time but we do find out later that russell brand did briefly date his granddaughter russell

01:08:07.340 brand at this point would have been in his 30s yeah early 30s yeah and the granddaughter's in

01:08:12.460 her early 20s jonathan ross is like fucking 50 he's just always been 50 it's unclear to me sure 0.99

01:08:17.660 he's middle-aged for forever it's like a gene hackman situation that's fucking nuts like a 1.00

01:08:22.420 middle-aged man being like he fucked your granddaughter like what in the fuck are we 1.00

01:08:27.120 doing it is the two boys on the telephone being like marianne so when i had sex with you i had 1.00

01:08:31.500 sex with you right you're confirming that i had sex with you while i'm taping it hang up hang up 1.00

01:08:35.040 Yeah. Also, I was thinking about this from Georgina's perspective that like, OK, you date this guy, whatever it appears like a week, a couple dates, whatever. 0.99

01:08:44.480 It's not super serious. And then a couple of weeks later, you find out that he's bragging about having sex with you on the fucking BBC to your grandpa. 0.99

01:08:54.000 Is she a public figure in her own right at this point? 0.99

01:08:56.500 Yeah. I mean, not like a major public figure, but she was a dancer and like was on the scene in some sense. 0.99

01:09:01.380 but like yeah this she was not a public figure in like you know a Helen Mirren sense right or like 0.72

01:09:05.820 I love that Helen Mirren was the name that's my only one British women famous sex scandal

01:09:12.240 Helen Mirren they then hang up and then they talk amongst themselves so this is them sort of doing

01:09:18.560 like a little recap Andrew Sachs I did not do nothing with Georgina oh no I revealed I know

01:09:24.160 her name oh no it's a disaster abort abort if he's like most people of a certain age he's probably

01:09:30.040 got a picture of his grandchildren when they were young and innocent right by the phone.

01:09:34.120 So while he's listening to the message, he's looking at a picture of her when she was nine

01:09:37.680 on a swing. She was on a swing when I met her. Let's ring back Andrew Sachs. Cute. Fucking

01:09:43.180 gross. Then they call again. Andrew, this is Russell Brand. I am so sorry about the last 1.00

01:09:49.680 message. It was part of the radio show. It was a mistake. The truth is I'm phoning you to ask if

01:09:55.100 I can marry. That's right, marry Georgina, the granddaughter. And I would like to be the page

01:10:00.200 boy. He wants to be a page boy. We're going to have a Fawlty Towers themed wedding. Now you've

01:10:05.420 spoiled it. No, I made it better. I'm sorry. I'll do anything. I wore a condom. Put the phone down.

01:10:10.820 And then there's one they hang out. And then there's a third message. This is Russell Brand

01:10:16.020 singing, but I'm not going to make you come up with a tune. Thank you. I'd like to apologize

01:10:21.760 for the terrible attacks andrew sacks i would like to show contrition to the max andrew sacks 0.80

01:10:28.080 i would like to create world peace between the yellow white and blacks andrew sacks great 0.98

01:10:34.520 i said something i didn't have otta like i had sex with your granddaughter 0.99

01:10:40.180 but it was consensual and she wasn't menstrual it was consensual lovely sex it was full of respect 1.00

01:10:48.120 i sent her a text i've asked her to marry me andrew sacks she wasn't minstrel what a fucking 0.99

01:10:57.580 creep unbelievable if i as a human being and encountering someone who's willing to go to 0.98

01:11:03.940 these kinds of lengths i'm like get away from me for forever because if you're willing to be this

01:11:09.920 level of boundary crossing then i think there maybe is no rock bottom for you at the time it

01:11:17.320 isn't really noticed apparently the BBC only got two complaints about this at the time yeah but

01:11:21.740 then the Daily Mail seizes on this as a way to attack the BBC right because the right wing hates 0.61

01:11:27.520 public media yeah and so they're like the BBC allowed this smut to go on the air and then the

01:11:33.160 BBC starts getting flooded with complaints and then it becomes a big scandal I feel kind of 0.98

01:11:37.820 complicated about it because like this is fucking scandalous and absolutely disgusting but the only 0.92

01:11:41.920 reason it was noticed is because it was like a right wing smear campaign basically against the 0.95

01:11:47.120 bbc it's it's weird to be like am i siding with what would then become mumsnet i know right like

01:11:53.120 you don't want to sort of be in the same camp but i do think you got to sort of stand in your

01:11:57.640 repulsed reaction to this and be like this is like not actually fucking okay so he is fired from the

01:12:05.500 bbc over this jonathan ross is given i believe it's six weeks or maybe six months of unpaid 0.83

01:12:10.620 leave. The controller of the BBC is forced to resign and the BBC is fined £140,000. This is

01:12:18.060 actually a really big deal and there was accountability for this at the time. But then

01:12:22.220 what's amazing is that then Russell Brand kind of just moves over to Hollywood. He's fired from MTV

01:12:28.520 for dressing up as Osama bin Laden. He's disgraced on the radio and on TV. His award show, the NME

01:12:36.140 award show thing was like considered a debacle at the time he just keeps like fucking up and then 0.92

01:12:41.740 people keep giving him second third and fourth chances and this sort of happens again after this 0.55

01:12:46.560 and by the time he comes back to uk it's kind of memory hold because all of a sudden he's a movie

01:12:50.720 star yeah i mean part of it is that that is like a little bit part of his persona right is that he's 0.52

01:12:55.940 like i'm a lovable fuck up yeah exactly don't expect better that would have been a better 0.92

01:13:00.700 fucking title for his book than bookie wook don't expect better so that is where we're gonna leave 0.98

01:13:04.880 russell brand and next episode we are going to pick it up with uh his journey to america 0.98

01:13:08.700 and uh his travails in hollywood can i give a preview of what my reaction is i know you're

01:13:14.480 gonna have your little soundboard in front of you i know what you're gonna do

01:13:17.120 is that the sigh soundboard disappointed sigh is the name of this one

01:13:25.060 is that all it does yeah do you want to hear male sigh yeah

01:13:29.160 dude you as a millennial podcaster should not have told me about that because i can

01:13:37.400 now replace you with one of those i've always been replaceable by a soundboard thing

01:13:59.160 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - March 17, 2026

Russell Brand Part 1

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