--- Brand, then 30, sent a car to her secondary school to take her out of lessons and to his home, she says, and asked her to save his name in her phone as “Carly” to deceive her parents. Brand’s management knew that he had a teenage girlfriend and advised him not to be seen with her in public, she says. Alice alleges that Brand once forced his penis down her throat, making her choke, and that after trying to push him off he only stopped after she hit him in the stomach. She says she was visibly upset after the incident.
---Over the following weeks, Brand referred to her as “the child”, asked her to read Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and coached her on what to say to her parents when he wanted to see her, Alice says. Although Alice was over the age of consent in the UK, she and a family member who has also spoken to The Sunday Times to corroborate her story both describe Brand’s behaviour as “grooming”. Alice says he suggested how she could deceive her parents into allowing her to visit him, and claims that he gave her “scripts” on how to lie to them. She also alleges that he told her not to trust her friends and that they would “all be looking to make money from it” if she revealed she was seeing him. “It was isolating,” she said.
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“I’m like, no, that’s not happening, I don’t care, that’s not happening, we’re not doing that,” she says. “I tried to get away from him and I slipped away from the wall. And then I went to another wall that had a painting on it. A huge painting. And my bag got actually stuck underneath that, and it’s still on my arm. And at this point he’s grabbing at my underwear, pulling it to the side.”
Nadia alleges that she told Brand to get off her and that she wanted to leave, but he carried on. “I’m stuck underneath the painting and he’s pushing up against me,” she says. “He’s a lot taller than me. And he has that glazed look in his eye again. And I can’t move. And I told him, ‘Get off, get off.’” Nadia claims that Brand pushed her up against the wall and raped her, without a condom.
---Nadia, meanwhile, had told a close friend what had happened and she took her to the Rape Treatment Center (RTC) at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center that same day.
She has shared a full copy of her treatment records, which state that she provided her underwear and other samples as evidence, which were frozen. An officer from the Los Angeles Police Department was alerted by the centre, according to the notes, but she chose not to make a police report — saying to the centre she “didn’t think my words would mean anything up against his”. The notes also state that “she was worried that, if her assailant’s name is somehow released, then her name will be dragged through the dirt”.
Nadia had therapy at the clinic for the following five months. During her therapy sessions, records show that Nadia was contemplating criminal or civil proceedings before ultimately deciding against it. However, she wrote Brand a letter “hoping to regain some of her power in the process”, her notes said, and she says she sent it to his house.
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Phoebe says the team working on a project with Brand at the time worked from different locations, including from his property in West Hollywood. She was at his house when she realised that a member of his staff had gone out and they were alone.
She describes being trapped in a bedroom and realising that Brand wanted to have sex with her. She says she can’t remember whether he was naked or in his underwear, but that he ended up naked at some point and started chasing her.
She claims he “grabbed me and got me on the bed”. She claims he tried to kiss her and remove her clothes as he pinned her down. Phoebe says “And I saw something come over his eyes, I swear to God, like, black, his eyes had no more colour, they were black, like the devil. Like a different person literally entered his body.” She was fully clothed.
---Phoebe, who told friends what had happened to her, felt forced to return to work in the days afterwards, but she claims that Brand, after becoming aware of her allegation, cornered her and threatened her with legal action. Phoebe did not formally report the incident as she feared that her career would be affected. Three separate sources confirmed that she had told them about her allegation at the time, while two more were also aware of it.
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She also describes how he once forced her to brush her teeth so hard that her gums bled, so she would taste “anonymous” to him. Martin writes that Brand “pushes boundaries, controlling other people to fulfil personal perversions for the sake of dominance, or for the sake of something”.
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For this investigation, journalists were in touch with dozens of comedians who have worked with Brand. A female comedian said that in the early 2000s when they gigged together, Brand chased her around backstage and bit her on the face, despite her making clear she was uncomfortable. “Whenever he saw me, he would grab me and bite my face and it was coupled up with this weird, horrible energy,” she recalls. “I said to him, ‘I don’t like this’ and he still did it so much before he stopped. It was him crossing boundaries.”
---Daniel Sloss was the only comedian willing to speak on the record and using his real name. He says he first heard rumours about Brand’s behaviour on the comedy circuit more than ten years ago.
Sloss says that female comedians have set up online groups that they use to warn each other of comedians and others working in the comedy industry who they have had unpleasant experiences with, including predatory behaviour. Sloss says: “I know for many, many years that women have been warning each other about Russell.”
Four women, including one who was just 16, make allegations after an investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches
www.thetimes.co.uk
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