Brand jury hears woman told friends and parents of alleged 2009 rape

A woman alleged that Russell Brand raped her in 2009 and ignored her requests to stop, in a recorded police interview played to jurors at Southwark Crown Court in London on Tuesday. Her account is part of a trial in which Brand faces seven sexual offence charges involving six women. He denies them all. [2] [3]

She said she met Brand after one of his shows and later willingly went to his home to have sex. During sex, she said, he penetrated her anally without warning or her consent and continued despite her telling him to stop. “It’s something that has lived with me ever since,” she said in the interview, according to Reuters. “I blamed myself for years.” [2]

Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault. The alleged offences span 1999 to 2009. He told police after his arrest that he had never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity and suggested the accusers might have reimagined events. [2] [3]

Jurors also heard from a former Choice FM worker, who alleged that Brand grabbed and kissed her at the radio station in the mid-2000s. A woman who worked at Channel 4 described a separate alleged assault during a recording project. The trial is due to continue on Wednesday. [2] [3] [4]

Update

Friends and family of a woman accusing Russell Brand of rape told a London jury on Thursday what she had said about a visit to his home in 2009 and how she appeared afterwards. Their testimony follows the woman’s own account of the alleged attack. Brand has pleaded not guilty.

A friend who had attended Brand’s comedy show with the woman said they spoke “quite soon after” the alleged incident. She said the woman was crying and told her Brand had forced her into anal sex at the end of an encounter that began consensually. Asked whether she had said no, the woman had replied “lots of times”, the friend told the jury.

Another friend said she had advised the woman to seek medical help and go to the police, but the woman feared she would not be believed. In statements read to the court, her parents said she stayed with them for about two months after the alleged incident. Her mother said her daughter told her “he raped me” and worried about HIV; her father described her as “very upset and very unwell”.

Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter KC, also challenged a former boyfriend over a 2025 police statement in which he had said the woman had “come round” to having anal sex. Winter suggested she had agreed to something she later regretted. The former boyfriend rejected that interpretation. A separate friend said the woman had not used the word “rape” in their first conversation, but said her lack of consent had been clear.

The witnesses described what the woman told them or what they observed afterwards; they did not witness the alleged assault. Brand, 51, denies all seven charges — three of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault — involving six women. He says his sexual encounters were consensual. The trial continues.