Russell Brand, convicted of rape and three counts of sexual assault, is rightfully a pariah. Yet he could not have risen to the heights of wealth and celebrity without a helping hand from some of the most powerful and influential people in public life. These are the people who will now be busy airbrushing their past history of gushing over Brand, uttering the time-worn words: “If only we had known what we know now” and generally seeking to move on as quickly as possible.
Russell Brand will pay a heavy price for his crimes but those who helped pave his way to fame could do with learning a lesson
Brand deserves what’s coming to him but his army of enablers, the people who gave him the seal of establishment approval, gilded his path to stardom, and generally prostrated themselves before his empty brand of political messianism, must not be allowed any hiding place.
The roll call of shame stretches far and wide. First, let’s start with the political Left. They will not thank you now for pointing out how the comedian was feted, quickly becoming a favourite in left-wing circles.
Those involved happily soaked up his anti-establishment and anti-Tory posturing, cosying up to him at every opportunity.
Take Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, a politician who likes to present himself as a man on a moral mission. Yet when he was Labour leader, his moral compass seems to have failed him when it came to Brand. Miliband went out of his way to ingratiate himself with the comedian – even agreeing to visit the star’s penthouse flat for an interview, all in order to get Brand’s political endorsement ahead of the 2015 election. This extraordinary act of pilgrimage by the leader of a major political party will have done much to increase Brand’s wider profile and influence.
There would appear to have been few qualms in Labour circles about consorting with Brand, even though some of his antics were not exactly secret even back then. Brand had been sacked by the BBC over the 2008 “Sachsgate” scandal on Radio 2, in which the comedian, together with co-star Jonathan Ross, left voicemails for Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, boasting of how he had slept with Sachs’ granddaughter. Nobody in Labour circles appeared too bothered. Alastair Campbell , the former spin doctor to Tony Blair, was gushing about Miliband’s strategy of wooing Brand. He said at the time: ‘What Russell Brand says and does matters more than what the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph, the Star and the Express are going to say on election day.’
Campbell subsequently praised Brand as “someone with a very good sense of who he is, what he wants to achieve, and how”. Labour politicians will have been alerted to Brand’s political usefulness because he had already been sanctified by the Guardian, which they viewed as the party’s in-house journal. Alan Rusbridger, its editor from 1995-2015, openly courted Brand as an influential and alternative voice on the political left. The newspaper published his political sermons and he was invited to speak at Guardian Live events. In August 2013, Brand was even photographed alongside Rusbridger at the newspaper’s morning editorial conference. In that same year, Rusbridger praised Brand’s appearance as an anti-establishment voice on BBC Newsnight. “I enjoyed Russell Brand’s Newsnight argument. And his subsequent Guardian article.”
Getting in on the act was the Guardian’s star columnist Owen Jones who simpered: “Ed Miliband’s best route to young voters is Russell Brand.” Elsewhere, Jones acknowledged that Brand’s attitude towards women was “problematic” but that didn’t seem to stop him from declaring that “Russell Brand matters”.
Jones interviewed the celebrity for a Guardian Live event in October 2014, and attacked the “all-too-smug, seen-it-all-before snottiness” directed at Brand. George Monbiot, another Guardian regular, dubbed the comedian a hero of 2014, calling him “the best thing that has happened to the left in years”. This is the broader environment in which Brand built his celebrity status, power and influence.
Others too must be held to account. The wider UK television and radio industry has questions to answer. It nurtured Brand at the height of his fame and influence. No one should be fooled by the attempt of TV bosses to suggest that their house is now in order and that the behaviour of TV stars like Brand belong to the past.
Sexual misconduct remains a real and present issue. Calling out bad behaviour by powerful stars is not easy, least of all for junior staff. There is a prevailing sense that the industry is too quick to protects its own, most of all its stars. While on BBC Radio 2 in 2008, Brand laughed on air about exposing himself moments earlier to a woman who was working in the same building in Los Angeles. No formal action was taken. Brand has even claimed that Lesley Douglas, the then controller of Radio 2 and 6 Music “loved me and gave me lots of room …so I took that room” during the mid-2000s. (Douglas’ spokesman has previously said: “Ms Douglas did not at any time encourage, enable and/or fail herself to take any adequate steps within her power with regard to the conduct of Mr Brand of which she was aware.”)
The BBC conducted a review, published in 2025, that found that complaints against Brand were not dealt with appropriately by the corporation and that staff were scared to voice further concerns about him in the belief he was untouchable.
The BBC, as well as Channel 4 which conducted its own review into Brand, say safeguarding and whistleblowing efforts have been strengthened. It is a start but accountability still seems in short supply. TV and radio bosses have been complacent for far too long. Russell Brand will pay a heavy price for his crimes but those who helped pave his way to fame could do with learning a lesson or two.
The post Russell Brand’s enablers should be ashamed of themselves appeared first on The Spectator Australia.