Russell Brand transformed into a “monster” when he allegedly forced a woman to take half-naked photographs of him before raping her in a hotel room at the Labour party conference, a court has heard.
The 51-year-old comedian has denied attacking the woman, who broke down in tears in the witness box at Southwark crown court as she told how she could not fight him off.
“He was really heavy,” she said. “I couldn’t struggle. I couldn’t breathe. I know he raped me, I know I said ‘no, no, I don’t want this.’”
Brand faces three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women, in allegations spanning 10 years from 1999 to 2009. He denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty.
Brand fixed his gaze on one of the TV screens in court on Thursday morning as a video of the woman’s interview from 27 September 2023 was played. She told police she met Brand at a fringe cabaret event that he was performing in during the Labour party conference in Bournemouth in 1999. She was not attracted to the then unknown performer, whom she assumed was gay and showered her with compliments.
But she found him polite and intelligent, and the pair spoke about their work before going back to her hotel room to continue their conversation.
The woman said she “froze” in the run-down single room when she returned from the toilet to find that Brand was partly naked and “prancing around” like an ostrich. She said she asked him why he had undressed, and he told her: “Don’t worry, I’m mostly naked at home.”
The woman told how she became “frightened” when Brand made her take half-naked photographs of him. She told police he then raped her in an attack that lasted up to 10 minutes and left her feeling scared, in pain, and like she couldn’t breathe.
“He did rape, he did push me on the bed,” she told police. “He did pull my clothes off, he took my trousers off.
“I remember him on me, very heavy. I know I said no. I kind of drifted out of my head. I couldn’t get out of the situation – ‘do I shout, do I scream?’ He was very heavy, I couldn’t breathe, it didn’t take long.”
She described his body as snake-like and “disgusting” and said his tongue was “horrible” like a lizard. “I’m saying ‘no, no’ but I was really scared,” she told police. “I know he groped me. I know he was touching me, I know he grabbed my breasts. I know he tried to kiss me and I moved my neck. I didn’t want his mouth on mine.
“He was just pulling my trousers down and pulling my underwear off, and he was inside me. It was not nice, it was painful and it hurt.”
Giving evidence from behind a screen in the afternoon, the woman added: “I was like a zombie on the bed. All I could think was he’s inside me and the quicker the better.”
In tense exchanges during cross-examination with defence barrister Ian Winter KC, the woman denied that Brand had persuaded her to have sex. “He was frightening, he seemed menacing at that point,” she replied. “He’s scary. I didn’t know what to do.”
She rejected Winter’s suggestion that she had fallen under the spell of Brand, whom the barrister described as charismatic with a magnetic personality. The judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, had to interrupt the lawyer during one exchange to object to one of his questions, saying: “Shush please. I’m the judge, you have to let me talk.”
The woman told the court Brand was a “completely different persona” in the hotel room. When pressed further by the prosecutor, Riel Karmy-Jones, the woman said: “He just changed suddenly from camp, friendly and effeminate to monster-like.
“I felt very scared in that moment. He was big, I felt threatened and he’s half-naked. And while I’m naive, I didn’t think at that moment his intentions were good.
“He was just dark and arrogant and performing – he was scary, he was demanding. He was the centre of the show, it was like it was back on stage – he wasn’t the [same] person I was chatting to.”
The woman told police she closed her eyes during the attack and that Brand made her feel sick and dirty. She recalled: “He was making noises, a lot of noises of enjoyment and saying how pretty I was. I remember him complimenting me, saying: ‘Are you enjoying it’? I remember him asking me. Obviously I didn’t answer.”
She alleged that Brand spoke as the attack was unfolding. She told police: “He was just saying: ‘We’re having fun, it’s fine, it’s all good, don’t worry about it, it’s just fun, it’s normal.’”
The woman, who had been a victim of abuse in the past, said Brand made her compare earlier experiences, and it “stuck in her head … is this what abusers do?”
She told police: “It was almost like to convince me it’s all OK and that I’d enjoy it, that I’d have to learn to enjoy it.”
In the aftermath, she said Brand acted “like nothing was wrong”, wrote down his email address, and suggested that his mother might like to meet her.
She told the court: “He is so arrogant in his mindset that he’s God’s gift that I must’ve enjoyed it and I must’ve wanted more.”
The following morning, she banged her head against the wall because she felt numb. She told police she had had nightmares about being pregnant and said she kept quiet about the incident for years as she watched Brand becoming “more and more famous”.
The woman said a 2023 Dispatches documentary about allegation of sexual misconduct by Brand “triggered” her to go to police.
Brand denies the allegations. The trial continues.
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