Comedian and actor Russell Brand faces a lengthy prison sentence after a jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court convicted him of rape and three sexual assaults on Thursday.
The 51-year-old, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and star of Hollywood films including “Get Him to the Greek” and “Arthur,” was remanded in custody after the verdicts. Judge Joel Bennathan told him a significant custodial term was inevitable and set sentencing for Monday, November 9.
Four convictions from a four-week trial
The jury found Brand guilty of raping a woman at his home in Hampstead in 2009, after she went home with him following one of his comedy performances. The three sexual assault convictions covered incidents from 2004 to 2009: grabbing a woman’s breasts at a party in a Soho bar in 2004, an assault at Choice FM radio studios in 2004 or 2005, and an assault on a woman working on a Channel 4 project.
Brand denied all seven charges against six women, with allegations spanning 1999 to 2009. Jurors acquitted him of two other rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault. The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for more than eight hours over two days, according to the Associated Press.
Prosecutors told jurors that Brand, the former husband of US pop singer Katy Perry, was obsessed with sex and used women to satisfy his own desires. Brand said the encounters were consensual, reinvented or re-imagined.
Further investigations continue
The case followed a 2023 investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme and British newspapers that prompted women to come forward with allegations against the entertainer. London’s Metropolitan Police said its investigation into rape allegations by two other women is ongoing, with files already sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. One of those allegations involves a then 16-year-old girl.
Brand was initially charged in April 2025 with one count of rape, one count of oral rape, one count of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault, according to the Metropolitan Police. His conviction marks one of the most high-profile outcomes of Britain’s reckoning with historic sexual offences, and his sentencing on Monday will draw attention around the world.
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