LONDON (Reuters) -British actor and comedian Russell Brand appeared in a London court on Friday to face charges of rape and multiple counts of sex assault in cases relating to four separate women more than two decades ago.
Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and former husband of U.S. pop singer Katy Perry, has consistently denied having non-consensual sex since allegations about him were first aired two years ago.
The 49-year-old comedian, wearing sunglasses and a dark shirt unbuttoned to his chest, slowly picked his way through a throng of reporters and cameramen into Westminster Magistrates’ Court without speaking.
In the dock, he was read out the charges he faced of rape, oral rape, indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault involving the four women between 1999 and 2005.
He stared ahead as prosecutor Suki Dhadda detailed a summary of the charges which involved raping a woman in her hotel room, groping one of the women’s breasts and buttocks, and trying to pull another of the complainants into a toilet.
He did not enter a plea, and spoke only to confirm his name and address and to thank the judge, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring, when he said he was free to leave on conditional bail until his next hearing at London’s Old Bailey court on May 30.
“You face a number of allegations,” Goldspring told him, saying Brand risked prison or a fine if he did not attend court.
After the charges were first announced last month, Brand said in a video statement posted to social media that in his younger days, before getting married and having children, he had been a fool and a sex addict but “what I never was, was a rapist”.
“I have never engaged in non-consensual activity,” he said in the video. “I’m now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”
In the 2000s, Brand was a regular on British screens, known for his flamboyant style and appearance. He worked for the BBC and starred in a number of films including “Get Him to the Greek” before marrying Perry in 2010. They divorced 14 months later.
By the early 2020s, he had faded from mainstream culture, appearing primarily on his internet channel where he airs his views on U.S. politics and free speech.
In September 2023, the Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV’s documentary show “Dispatches” reported allegations of sex offences against him, and London police opened an investigation some weeks later.
Brand, who said last year he had become a Christian, rejected those accusations.
“These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies. And as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous,” he said.
(Reporting by Michael HoldenEditing by Gareth Jones, William Maclean)
