Russell Brand Says His Behavior Towards Women Was “Awful But Lawful”

Russell Brand has spoken at length about his “exploitative” behavior towards women and his “humbling” upcoming rape trial during an interview with Megyn Kelly.

The Forgetting Sarah Marshall star turned manosphere podcaster told Kelly that his “sexual conduct in the past was selfish,” but stressed that it was always consensual.

During his appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show, Brand admitted to having sex with a 16-year-old when he was 30 years old, which he suggested transgressed lines of acceptability.

The relationship was first revealed as part of an investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times, and Channel 4 in 2023, in which Brand was accused of rape and sexual assault, as well as abusive, controlling, and predatory behaviour. Brand denied the allegations.

“I was a very different person,” Brand said of his past conduct. “I was a lot younger, and I was an immature 30-year-old. Consensual sex, actually with a variety of people, when there is a strong power differential, as there is when you’re a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think involves exploitation. I think it is exploitative.”

He argued that consent was at the core of his sexual interactions. “What fame gave me, and what my addiction fueled, was opportunity for endless consent, which led me to be a hedonist and a fool and an exploiter of women. And that is wrong, and that is something that needs to be redeemed and addressed and atoned for,” Brand continued.

The former Big Brother’s Big Mouth presenter repeated his theory that the journalistic investigation into his conduct was published because he became “openly critical of the pharmaceutical industry, the British government, bureaucratic agencies that have unelected power.”

In April 2025, Brand was charged with rape, indecent assault, and sexual assault in relation to four women. In December, London’s Metropolitan Police brought fresh charges of rape and sexual assault against Brand, relating to two more women. The 50-year-old will face trial on October 12.

Commenting on the legal proceedings, he said: “It’s been very, very, very humbling and confronting because I already recognized that sexual addiction was wrong. I’ve already recognized that, as a married man or anyone in a committed relationship, you’ve got to be straight and faithful.”

He added: “But I believe in God. So all things are from God. This is from God. I don’t like it very much, I mean, and it is extremely stressful.”

Among the charges brought against Brand, he stands accused of raping a woman in a hotel room in Bournemouth in 1999, and grabbing a TV worker’s breasts and orally raping her in 2004.

The actor and comedian, who was married to Katy Perry, has reinvented himself as a Christian convert who evangelizes about free speech and free thinking in MAGA America.