Russell Brand's convictions renew spotlight on media — and a culture — that may have looked away

LONDON (AP) — For three straight years while he worked at BBC radio stations, Russell Brand was awarded a notable distinction by The Sun, Britain’s largest tabloid: “Shagger of the Year.”

It was, of course, in perfect alignment with the bad-lad image Brand cultivated that rode a thin line between outrageous and offensive, as he became one of Britain’s most famous comedians.

Brand’s convictions Thursday for rape and sexual assault have turned a spotlight back on the BBC and other media employers, renewing questions about whether bosses enabled his behavior or chose to look away. They also highlighted the ways in which his excesses were overlooked by the culture at large.

“When Brand was at his most famous, his wrongdoings were indulged or ignored by his employers and, to be fair, the public too,” Ann Olivarius, an attorney specializing in sexual misconduct, said in an email message.

The BBC apologized last year for a culture of silence that, it said, prevented staff from complaining about Brand’s behavior at its radio stations between 2006 and 2008 because they felt he was too powerful.

It reiterated that apology after his conviction.

“It was of great concern to us that some people felt unable to raise concerns about Brand’s behavior,” the BBC said Thursday in a statement. “We apologized to those impacted, for both the culture and failings at the time.”

Britain’s public broadcaster had launched the internal probe after The Times and Channel 4, in a joint investigation, aired accusations in 2023 from women who said they had been sexually abused and degraded by Brand.

The resulting articles and documentary brought women forward who provided the evidence that led to his conviction. But it was no secret Brand had misbehaved during his time as a shock jock at the BBC or TV host at Channel 4. He wrote in a memoir, for example, about how he had sex in radio-station handicapped bathrooms with contestant winners from the BBC station 6 Music.

“Nobody ever mistook Russell Brand for a Boy Scout,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce. “His brand was R-rated from Day One."

The 51-year-old was convicted Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault involving multiple women. He was acquitted of two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault. He faces sentencing Monday.

Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy of London’s Metropolitan Police called the conviction “a testament to the extraordinary courage, resilience and determination of the women who came forward and reported what happened to them.”

“Brand used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women,” Furphy said. “As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement.”

Of the eight complaints the BBC investigated, only one — that Brand had urinated in a cup in front of staff — had been made formally during his time at the stations. The review found it was “not dealt with effectively.”

In his second memoir, “My Booky Wook 2,” Brand spoke of how “incredibly tolerant” Lesley Douglas, the Radio 2 controller at the time, was about his behavior and that he took advantage of the “lots of room” she gave him.

He acknowledged going “too far,” though, when he claimed, on air, that he would be under the desk performing an intimate act with a female newsreader while she was reading the headlines.

The newsreader “was a bit upset,” he said.

Liz Kershaw, a longtime BBC radio DJ, wrote in The Telegraph on Thursday that she had complained since 2006 to BBC management about how Brand’s behavior was tolerated.

“Brand was a creation of some of the most powerful players in the media,” Kershaw wrote. “They were in his thrall. And he was egged on. He was their performing monkey. He made ‘great telly.’ His colleagues were collateral damage.”

In 2008, Brand finally went too far during an on-air prank and had to resign. Brand phoned actor Andrew Sachs, best known for the 1970s program, “Fawlty Towers,” and left a message claiming to have had sex (he used an expletive) with his granddaughter.

Brand resigned from Radio 2 and Britain’s broadcast regulator hit the BBC with a record fine of 150,000 pounds, the equivalent of $219,000 at the time.

While a Channel 4 documentary helped bring down Brand, the broadcaster was also connected to one of the criminal charges at trial from his days as a TV host there. Channel 4 apologized in 2024 to a former employee after an internal review found it had not investigated a serious complaint a staffer made against him in 2009.

Brand was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting a former employee while working on a project for the channel in 2009. The staffer testified that two members of Brand’s entourage had asked her to give Brand a massage and then watched and laughed as the comic put his head into her crotch.

One of Brand’s associates, Jack Bayles, did not testify but said in a statement that he did not recall the incident but was sorry for missing something at the time or failing to recognize the distress it caused.

“I was in the early stages of my career, and it was a frantic, pressured and toxic working environment,” Bayles said. “Brand was chaotic, dismissive and manipulated the people around him.”

He said he stopped working with Brand in 2010 and had not been in touch with him since.

Some analysts noted that it was precisely Brand’s outrageous image that may have protected him from suspicion of criminal activity.

Adamson, the marketing consultant, noted “the sex, the drugs, the open shirt, the leer" that defined Brand. “That is exactly why the behavior never registered as a warning sign; it was him marketing his brand,” he said.

Blame goes also to the media at the time, Adamson noted. “The media did not just cover the persona — they co-authored it. When a national newspaper hands you a trophy three years running for sleeping around, you are not hiding anything. You’re building your brand."

Attorney and anti-misogyny activist Cheyenne Hunt noted that Brand’s raunchy behavior almost served as a pre-emptive defense.

Someone like Brand "is trying to create a persona such that if someone comes forward, there is this ... defense available to them, that is, ‘Well, what did you THINK was going to happen?’" Hunt said.

The role that comedy played was also key, said Hunt, who leads the group Reckoning Action, which she founded after her role in exposing sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. politicians Eric Swalwell and Graham Platner.

“I tell people to beware of the clown and beware of the jester,” Hunt said. “Because it makes their behavior appear as though they’re joking or like it’s some kind of absurdist comedy, and folks don’t take them literally. But what they’re doing is building a permission structure to do exactly what they’re telling you they’re going to do.”

"And that is very much Russell Brand’s MO, and I think he learned from many other folks who have the same playbook.”

Noveck reported from New York.