Comedian and actor Russell Brand has been found guilty of rape and sexual assault following a four-week trial in London.
A jury at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday convicted Brand, 51, of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault, which had been reduced from indecent assault during the trial.
Justice Bennathan had required a unanimous verdict on all seven charges, which involved six women over a ten-year period between 1999 and 2009. The jury deliberated for roughly eight and a half hours over two days.
Brand, who had denied all of the charges, was taken into custody after the verdict and denied bail as a flight risk. The judge told him that his convictions, including for rape, will inevitably lead to a significant prison term.
The rape conviction involves a woman who met Brand after one of his shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2009. Prosecutors said the encounter began consensually before Brand raped her.
The jury also found him guilty of groping an MTV worker at a bar in central London in 2004, kissing and groping another woman at her workplace in 2005, and sexually assaulting a woman in 2009 who was forced to give him a massage.
Brand was cleared of raping a woman in a Bournemouth hotel room after the Labour Party conference in 1999.
U.K. police said after the verdict that Brand used his influence, status and fame to prey on and exploit women. According to BBC News, Brand is also being investigated over further rape allegations made by two other women.
The allegations against Brand first surfaced in 2023 in a joint investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Times, which prompted the Metropolitan Police to open an inquiry. Brand was charged in 2025 and pleaded not guilty.
During the trial, Brand’s lawyer, Ian Winter, argued the Channel 4 documentary had a devastating impact and poisoned the case against his client. Prosecutors countered that Brand’s defense was built on half-truths spun into lies.
Brand rose to fame in the early 2000s working for the BBC and MTV and later appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” In recent years, he built a large online following, professed his conversion to Christianity and became an outspoken voice on the right.
When he was first charged, Brand said in a video that he was not a rapist and had never engaged in non-consensual sex, adding that he was grateful for the chance to defend himself in court.
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