Russell Brand
Russell Brand, comedian, provocateur, and self-styled outsider, is now facing a UK criminal trial on historic sexual-offence charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Russell Brand: Comedian, Controversialist, Defendant
Russell Brand is a British comedian, actor, and broadcaster born on 4 June 1975. He rose to fame in the UK through his outrageous, verbally acrobatic persona on television and radio, becoming one of the most recognisable faces on British screens in the 2000s. Internationally, he broke through with Hollywood roles in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and its spin-off Get Him to the Greek (2010).
His career has never been short of controversy. In 2008 he was at the centre of “Sachsgate,” a prank-call scandal involving fellow comedian Jonathan Ross that saw him leave BBC Radio 2. He parlayed the notoriety into a transatlantic career, a brief but high-profile marriage to pop star Katy Perry (2010–2012), and a string of stand-up tours and books about his well-documented struggles with addiction and recovery.
In recent years Brand reinvented himself as an anti-establishment commentator, amassing millions of followers across YouTube and other platforms with a mix of wellness content, political scepticism, and spiritual reflection. In April 2024 he was publicly baptised as a Christian, a signal moment in what he has described as a long spiritual journey.
Brand is now the subject of a pending criminal trial in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service authorised charges in April 2025; he faces a total of seven sexual-offence charges involving six women, with the alleged conduct dating from 1999–2005 and 2009. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, is on bail, and has publicly denied all the allegations, describing the case as politically motivated. The trial is set for 12 October 2026 at Southwark Crown Court. No trial has yet taken place and he has not been convicted of any offence.
People search for Brand for a wide range of reasons, his comedy and film work, his marriage to Katy Perry, his spiritual transformation, and now the ongoing legal proceedings. This page covers what is publicly known; where reliable information is unavailable, that is flagged clearly.