2002 clip of Russell Brand and his father Ron recalling a holiday where they hired sex workers together has resurfaced after Brand was jailed for rape and sexual assault.
A 24-year-old clip of Russell Brand talking with his father about a trip to Asia has gone viral again, just days after the former comedian was jailed for rape and sexual assault. Brand, 51, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison in London on Monday, November 9. He was found guilty last week of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.
Since then, social media users have been digging up old clips of Brand’s behavior toward women. One of them has spread faster than the rest.
The 2002 clip people are calling ‘revolting’
The footage comes from Brand’s 2002 TV show RE:Brand, when he was 26 or 27. In it, he sits down with his father, Ron, and the two look back on a trip to Asia they took together when Brand was 17 and still in school. According to Brand’s 2007 memoir My Booky Wook, the holiday began in Hong Kong before continuing to Thailand.
Brand had a difficult relationship with his dad growing up. Ron left the family when Brand was just six months old.
“We’ve got on better since I’ve been an adult. Since that holiday where we went to Thailand; remember that first night?” Brand says, before describing arriving at a hotel in Hong Kong full of women in swimsuits.
“I can’t wait to get back to my school and tell my mates,” he recalls thinking.
What happened on the trip
Brand goes on to describe, in explicit detail, how he and his father spent the night with sex workers, and how one of the women was the “madam” of a brothel. He talks about falling “in love” with a young Filipino woman, and recalls his father asking him the next morning whether he had used a condom.
“I went, ‘no, I never’, and you went ‘You should’ve,'” Brand says. Throughout the conversation, his father laughs and jokes along.
Many viewers seeing the clip for the first time were horrified.
“I listened for about a minute, that was enough. Absolutely revolting. I wish I hadn’t heard any of it. Now feeling utterly nauseous,” one person wrote on X. Another questioned: “So this happened in 2002 and no one called it out or thought it was a bit weird?”
His father’s response to the verdict
On Monday, November 9, Brand was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison at Southwark Crown Court in London, after a jury found him guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others between 2004 and 2009.
He was cleared of two further counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Joel Bennathan called Brand a “sexual predator” and praised the courage of the women who gave evidence against him.
Ron Brand has stood by his son throughout the trial.
After the verdict on November 5, he told the BBC he was 2bemused and shocked.”
“I just didn’t expect this. It’s wrong,” he said, calling the outcome “devastating.” He was even more defiant after the sentencing on Monday. Speaking to reporters outside Southwark Crown Court, he was asked whether he had anything to say to the victims.
“The victim? What, Russell?” he replied, before adding: “The girls, you mean, who chased him?” When a reporter pointed out that his son had been convicted, Ron said: “I don’t care. I don’t care. It’s a system. We don’t believe the justice system,” according to Sky News.
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