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Standing in the glass dock at Southwark Crown Court in London, awaiting his sentence for one rape and three sexual assaults to be handed down, Russell Brand was addressed directly by the judge. “No doubt your companions
thought it was outrageous laddish behaviour that only you could get away with,” Justice Bennathan said, referencing an incident in which Brand had launched himself on an unknown woman in the middle of a studio corridor as his entourage looked on. “It was outrageous and possibly laddish, but also a criminal sexual offence. And as it turns out, you haven’t got away with it.”
Brand may well have gotten away with it had it not been for a joint investigation by Channel 4 documentary strand “Dispatches” and The Sunday Times of London. Their reporting, published in Sept. 2023, contained numerous serious allegations, including that the former comedian had sexually assaulted four women between 2006 and 2013. Brand denied any wrongdoing (none of the women who made the allegations in the documentary were involved in the recent criminal trial although it is understood the Met Police are now investigating at least one of those complaints and Brand may face yet more charges).
The former comedian, who’d appeared in Hollywood movies and had a short-lived marriage to Katy Perry at the height of her success, had long cultivated an air of degeneracy as part of his persona, enabling him to operate in plain sight. Yet it wasn’t until the Channel 4/Sunday Times investigation was published that police opened an investigation. Whether it’s because the reporting had prompted more women to come forward – as Brand’s lawyer in the trial, Ian Winter, repeatedly argued — or because the media spotlight gave the authorities the resolution they needed to investigate a celebrity will probably never be known.
But Brand is not the only celebrity to have found themselves in the dock after being accused of wrongdoing in the media. In 2023 news anchor Huw Edwards, once the best-known and highest paid journalist at the BBC, was the subject of an expose by The Sun, who revealed he had been in an inappropriate text-based relationship with a teenager during which he’d paid for nude photographs.
Although he had not acted unlawfully in that instance, Edwards was arrested less than a year later and eventually convicted of making indecent images after police found videos of children as young as seven being abused on Edwards’ phone. It emerged he had been sent them by a pedophile to whom he’d, apparently unrelatedly, gifted numerous instalments of cash.
Kevin Spacey has also faced an endless series of legal battles – both criminal and civil on both sides of the Atlantic – after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in a 2017 Buzzfeed interview. None have resulted in any finding of liability or criminality and Spacey has always denied any allegations of sexual misconduct but his career has never recovered. In the U.K. Spacey was, like Brand, tried at Southwark Crown Court, where he was on trial for nine charges of sexual assault against four separate men. He was acquitted on all counts. After the trial, some of the jurors asked to meet the Oscar-winner and shake his hand.
So it’s unsurprising that David Walliams, a comedian, bestselling children’s author and former “Britain’s Got Talent” judge, sought an injunction last month to prevent the same newspaper from publishing an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct. Lawyers for Walliams told London’s High Court he would be likely to commit suicide if the story was published. The judge held that suicidal ideation is not a ground on which to prevent the publication of an article potentially in the public interest, although he noted his decision to dismiss the injunction does not mean the allegations are true.
Published today, the Guardian’s report accuses Walliams of grooming young fans and harassment. One woman told the newspaper she was 15 when she alleges Walliams drove her to his house and engaged in behavior that she now considers to be sexual assault. Walliams has denied all the allegations. There is no police investigation into Walliams nor any suggestion he may face charges, but, like Spacey, his career now lies in ruins. (Walliams has been dropped by his agent and his books will no longer be published).
Brand’s celebrity loomed large throughout his trial: some of his victims were fans who were initially thrilled to meet him, others were vulnerable because of his disproportionate power over them. In his sentencing remarks, Justice Bennathan accepted the former comedian’s fame was “an intrinsic part of each offence” as it allowed him to carry out his crimes. But, he noted, “I also need to be careful I am not punishing you more because you are famous.”
Coddled by their managers, obeyed by their assistants and adored by their fans, some celebrities have been able to abuse their exalted status. But when an intrepid journalist turns that spotlight to expose alleged misconduct, whether criminal or otherwise, fame can also be their undoing.
