British actor-comedian faces rape charge

British actor and comedian Russell Brand has been accused of raping, emotionally abusing several women.

According to a report, at least four women, one of them only 16, alleged that they were raped, sexually assaulted and emotionally abused by the actor, who termed the allegations as lies.

One of the alleged victims said that she had been raped by Brand at his Los Angeles home on an unspecified date. The victim was treated at a rape crisis center.

A text message exchange seen by a newspaper shows the woman telling Brand: “When a girl say[s] NO it means no.” Brand texted in response that he was “very sorry.”

Among the other allegations, a woman claims that she was involved in an abusive relationship with Brand when he was 31 and she was 16, during which he repeatedly referred to her as “the child.”

Brand posted a video to YouTube and his various social media accounts and refuted the allegations. He called them “litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks” against him, which he said were being made against him by a “mainstream media TV company” and a newspaper.

“The relationships I had were absolutely always consensual,” Brand said, addressing a period in his life in which he said he was “very, very promiscuous” and that he has always been transparent about his past. “To see that transparency metastasized into something criminal, which I absolutely deny, makes me question: is there another agenda at play?”

Reports said that the lawyers representing Brand wrote that their client believed the claims to reflect “a deeply concerning agenda to all this, namely the fact that he is an alternative media broadcaster competing with the mainstream media.”

Responding to Brand’s video on X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk wrote: “Of course. They don’t like competition.”

Elsewhere in the video clip, Brand noted what he called “coordinated media attacks” against outspoken figures online such as Joe Rogan “when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn’t approve of.” Rogan said in 2021 that he was taking the de-worming drug Ivermectin to treat Covid-19.