The Establishment vs Russell Brand
By Kurt Mahlburg, Mercatornet.
The excesses of the #MeToo movement — perhaps most evident in last year’s infamous Johnny Depp trial — seemed to indicate it was a fad that had run its course, a hysteria consigned to the history books. But the recent jaw-dropping treatment of Russell Brand is proof positive the #MeToo is back with untamed vengeance.
Russell Brand, 48, is an English comedian, actor and commentator whose public life can be roughly divided into two halves. During his first iteration, Brand starred in Hollywood films, wrote for mainstream news outlets, had a short, turbulent marriage to American singer Katy Perry, and struggled very publicly with addictions to sex, alcohol and drugs.
In more recent years, Brand has overcome his addictions, become a father, husband and faithful family man, and repurposed his podcast as a hub of dissent against mainstream discourse on Covid-19, the Ukraine war and the 2020 US election, among other topics.
In one of his more viral moments, for instance, Brand appeared as a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, and told the host:
If you have an economic system in which pharmaceutical companies benefit hugely from medical emergencies, where a military industrial complex benefits from war, where energy companies benefit from energy crises, you are going to generate states of perpetual crisis where the interests of ordinary people separate from the interests of the elite.
Now — at the height of his personal reformation and with a burgeoning social media audience — decades-old sexual assault allegations have been levelled against Brand by a clandestine gaggle of his former consorts. Notably, the allegations were not offered voluntarily by Brand’s accusers, nor were they reported to authorities. Instead, they were sourced by Channel 4, The Sunday Times and The Times from five women, four of whom remain unnamed.
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