Who Let Him Get Away With It?

You may know him as the charismatic rockstar Aldous Snow in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek” or as the flamboyant, provocative British comedian. Now the world is seeing this actor, comedian and conspiracy theorist as one of the many predators in the Hollywood sphere. If you haven’t heard, Russell Brand is currently under fire for multiple rape and sexual assault allegations.

So far, four women between the ages of 16 and 31 have reported sexual assault from Brand between 2006 and 2013. He has strongly denied the allegations and even performed a comedy show about an hour after the allegations surfaced. Since then, his content has been dropped from BBC and other stations, and his tour has been postponed. Actors and actresses who have worked alongside him have reported feeling discomfort around him and were unsurprised by the allegations.

Ever since Brand entered the spotlight, he has been the subject of many controversies. His demeanor has always been off-putting and overly sexual. He was an open book in his comedy shows and interviews, being very transparent about his sex addiction and illicit drug use. The start of controversy during his career in the spotlight began when he was an MTV host. The day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Brand went to work dressed as Osama Bin Laden.

This failed attempt at dark humor was not well received and cost him his job at MTV. While not a sexual allegation, it’s still not a good look and incredibly insensitive. Somehow, Brand still wiggled his way back into Hollywood and landed some big rolls. One of these key roles was in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” where he worked alongside Kristen Bell.

In an interview, Kristen Bell explained that she had intimidated Russell Brand from the beginning, warning him not to try anything with some choice language. Thankfully, Bell was never a victim of Brand's advances but believes that he “loves everyone to know that he's a womanizer, and he’s done all these strange things.”

Fellow comedian Katherine Ryan has previously done interviews talking about a “British comedian” who was a well-known predator in the comedic world. While she never explicitly mentioned this in interviews, she said on a broadcast with Louis Theroux that she confronted “this person” while filming a TV show for being a “perpetrator of sexual assault.” Funnily enough, these statements were cut from the broadcast. She also said that “people have tried to nail this person down for their alleged crimes,” which is sadly very common in the Hollywood world.

Nish Kumar, another comedian who knew Brand well, believes more allegations will follow. Kumar calls his predatory behavior “an open secret” in the British comedy world. Kumar noted that he and other comedians were aware of other assaults done by the shamed comedian that have not been alleged yet. “I think if you look at Russell Brand's IMDB page, you see that his television work in Britain starts to dry up around 2018, 2019. And that's simply because increasingly people were just not willing to work with him,” Kumar said.

The overwhelming majority of people in the industry were well aware of Russell Brands’ predatory behavior, which poses the question of why it took this long to nail him down. The celebrity world gives too many predators the ability to get away with their actions because of their status. It’s hard to say who let him get away with it, but many factors enabled Brand to continue to build a platform after — and even during — his predatory actions.