Highlights
- Brand admits sleeping with a 16-year-old at 30, calling it “exploitative” but consensual
- He faces 7 charges: 3 rapes, 3 sexual assaults, 1 indecent assault; trial set for Oct. 12
- Brand labeled himself an “exploiter of women” and estimated sex with “thousands” of women
Russell Brand has made a startling on-camera admission — acknowledging that he had consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30 years old, while simultaneously framing the encounter as morally indefensible due to the power imbalance celebrity affords.
The 50-year-old comedian, actor, and podcaster made the confession during a Wednesday appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show, the YouTube program hosted by the prominent right-wing media personality — and he didn’t mince words.
“The plain fact of it is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom, where I’m from, the age of consent is 16, and I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30,” Brand said. “But when I was 30, I was a very different person. I was a lot younger, and I was an immature 30-year-old.”
Brand quickly acknowledged that legality and ethics are not the same thing.
“Consensual sex, actually, with a variety of people when there is a strong power differential, because 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. I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish and I did not apply enough consideration, barely any, I suppose, really, to how that sex was affecting other people,” he said.
The timing of the admission is impossible to separate from Brand’s mounting legal jeopardy. He was originally set to stand trial at London’s Southwark Crown Court starting June 16, but the trial — which will combine all seven charges brought against Brand in the last year — will now begin on Oct. 12. It is expected to last up to two months.
Brand, who faces three charges of rape, three allegations of sexual assault, and one charge of indecent assault, has pleaded not guilty on all counts. The charges involve six women who allege crimes took place between 1999 and 2009.
Among the most harrowing accusations: Brand is alleged to have raped a woman in a hotel room during a Labour Party conference in Bournemouth; one complainant alleges she was dragged into a male toilet and orally raped while working in television; another claims Brand grabbed her by the forearm in an attempt to pull her into a restroom; and it is further alleged that Brand pinned a radio station employee against a wall, kissing her forcibly before groping her.
On The Megyn Kelly Show, Brand appeared to frame his past behavior as part of a pre-spiritual awakening chapter of his life — one defined by addiction, excess, and what he now calls self-awareness in hindsight.
“I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord,” he said in a prior social media statement. “I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile. But what I never was, was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity.”
During the Kelly interview, the Get Him to the Greek actor later estimated he had sexual contact with “thousands” of women between the mid-1990s and 2015, describing his past self as “selfish” and an “exploiter of women.”
Brand opened the interview with a note of gratitude toward Kelly for the forum.
“Thank you, Megyn Kelly, for giving me the grace to address, in particular, your anger, which is entirely legitimate and recognizable,” he said.
The context around the 16-year-old admission is narrower than the larger criminal case, but it still reveals how Brand is framing his own conduct. In the U.K., the age of consent is 16, except where an adult is in a position of trust — such as a teacher, social worker, sports coach, or doctor — when the age of consent rises to 18. Brand’s statement does not challenge that legal threshold; instead, it focuses on the ethical question of whether fame and influence can turn a technically consensual encounter into something coercive in practice.
Brand has consistently denied any criminal wrongdoing. Former girlfriend Jordan Martin accused him of assault and abuse during a relationship in 2007. Comedian Katherine Ryan has also said she confronted Brand directly, calling him a “predator,” though she did not initially name him in public.
Those earlier accounts gained renewed attention following a joint investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times, and Channel 4’s Dispatches in September 2023. The report detailed allegations from multiple women, including claims of sexual assault and emotional abuse between 2006 and 2013. One of the women said she was 16 at the time of an alleged relationship with Brand, while he was 31. Brand rejected those findings at the time, describing them as “astonishing, rather baroque attacks” and insisting all of his relationships “were absolutely always consensual.”
At his most recent court appearance in February — where he arrived wearing a tiger-print shirt and carrying a Bible — Brand told reporters he felt “blessed.”
His October trial at Southwark Crown Court will put that posture to its most serious test yet.
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