LONDON (Reuters) – British actor and comedian Russell Brand is due to appear in a London court on Friday after being charged last month with rape and multiple counts of sex assault in cases relating to four separate women more than two decades ago.
Brand, who was once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and is the former husband of U.S. pop singer Katy Perry, has always denied having non-consensual sex since allegations about him were first aired two years ago.
The 49-year-old comedian was charged by London police on April 4 with rape, oral rape, indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault involving the four women between 1999 and 2005.
After the charges, Brand said that in his younger days before he was married with children, he had been a fool and a sex addict but “what I never was, was a rapist”.
“I have never engaged in non-consensual activity,” he said in a video statement. “I’m now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”
In the 2000s, Brand was a regular on British screens, known for his flamboyant style and appearance. He worked for the BBC and starred in a number of films including “Get Him to the Greek” before marrying Perry in 2010. They divorced 14 months later.
By the early 2020s he had faded from mainstream culture, appearing primarily on his internet channel where he airs his views on U.S. politics and free speech.
In September 2023, the Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV’s documentary show “Dispatches” reported allegations of sex offences against him and London police opened an investigation some weeks later.
Brand, who said last year he had become a Christian, rejected those allegations.
“These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies. And as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous,” he said.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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