Russell Brand Found Guilty of Rape & Sexual Assault and Is Taken Into Custody

Warning: The following post contains discussions of rape and sexual assault.

On Thursday, November 5, a jury convicted Russell Brand of rape and sexual assault, according to the Associated Press. The actor’s prison term will be confirmed on Monday, November 9, when he is sentenced. He will remain in custody until then.

The jury found Brand guilty of raping a fan in 2009 after meeting her at one of his shows in London, per CNN. He was also found guilty of three charges of sexual assault involving three others. On two rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault, he was acquitted.

Brand was present in court when the verdict was read. He denied the charges against him, and while he admitted to being “obsessed with sex” when he was a younger man, insisted he was never with anybody against their will.

Allegations about Brand were published in 2023 after four women, who remained anonymous, accused him of sexual assault and emotional abuse between the years of 2006 and 2013. While defending Brand in court, lawyers argued the accusers were undermined because they didn’t go to the police for years after the alleged incidents occurred.

“My entire life has been consumed by these events, these allegations, these accusations,” Brand said. When he testified in court, he claimed he’d been abandoned by colleagues and friends amid the charges against him.

Brand was previously married to Katy Perry for just over a year before he filed for divorce in December 2011. Since 2017, he has been married to Laura Gallacher, whom he previously dated a decade earlier when he was 31 and she was 19. The couple shares three children and Gallacher was a character witness for her husband in court.

In her testimony, Gallacher called Brand “caring and kind, a wonderful father to our children, and an amazing, attentive husband.” She said, “We have a very honest, frank and clear relationship and marriage. Our relationship has always been [about] honesty… I love him very much.”

If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual assault, contact the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network‘s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or a loved one is in immediate danger, call 911.