Dear Nevermorons,
Russell Brand is the most famous anarchist in the world.
For over twenty years now, he has been on the right side of history. He spoke up about 9/11 during the dark days of the War on Terror, and his career suffered as a result. He provided quality coverage during the COVID era, and has done a lot to popularize anarchist ideas. Oh yeah, and apparently he fucked a 16-year-old girl along the way somewhere.
As you may recall, last year Brand became the target of a smear campaign in which his YouTube channel was demonetized, despite the fact that he had not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one.
I have previously written about the allegations against Brand, concluding that they were clearly politically motivated.
Although it is extremely easy to believe that a drug-addicted movie star would have sex with a lot of young women, it is less clear that he forced himself on anyone. Let’s be honest. I don’t think that Russell Brand needed to resort to rape to get laid. Girls were probably lining up out the door to fuck him.
Regardless, the British media decided to roll with “HE’S A RAPIST!”
Now, personally, I think that it’s entirely possible that Russell Brand’s behaviour towards his sexual partners was unethical. For one thing, he doesn’t defend his own actions. He freely admits he was “very promiscuous”, expresses remorse for his “hedonistic lifestyle”, and has apologized to anyone that he may have hurt.
You can judge his sincerity for yourself by watching this video, which Brand released shortly after British media launched their campaign against him.
For another, his former friend Daniel Pinchbeck wrote an Open Letter to Russell Brand, which gives every indication that Pinchbeck considers the rumours against him credible. Presumably, Pinchbeck would be a much better position to judge than those of us who know Brand only from his public persona.
Now, the truth movement has resoundingly rejected the trumped-up rape accusations. Interestingly, there has been little discussion about the fact that Brand may have fucked a 16-year-old girl named “Alice”.
The age difference between Brand and Alice at least suggests the possibility of an exploitative relationship. But, beyond Alice's allegations, there was no clear evidence of any crime. Alice also reported apparent tenderness. She told how Brand held her hand as he and a friend gave her a lift home. Alice said that she interpreted this as controlling behaviour from Brand, which made her feel like a child.
This segment in Dispatches "investigation" strongly insinuated that Brand is a paedophile—or hebephile at the very least—who was grooming a child. Yet, Dispatches acknowledged that Alice was at the age of consent when she and Brand began their relationship.
There are moral questions that can be asked about Brand's reported behaviour, but nothing to supports any suggestion that he is a paedophile.
This seems to me a fair verdict to me. After all, we don’t even know if he knew she was sixteen.
Furthermore, paedophilia refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent girls. Technically, sexual attraction to post-pubescent adolescents is known as hebephilia, and is not considered pathological by medical science. In other words, it’s normal.
Russell Brand’s popularity seems to have unaffected by the smear campaign against him, mostly because the rape accusations against him didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Indeed, people lined up to come to his defence, as it appeared that the establishment wished to silence an important dissident voice. The blatant attempt at character assassination actually made Brand more credible to those of us who are hyper-vigilant when it comes to controlled opposition.
Impressively, Brand came out of the whole thing smelling like roses. It shows that confidence in the mainstream media is at an all-time low. If that had happened in 2015, I’m pretty sure a smear campaign him would have worked.
Brand also played his cards rather impressively. At a time when Christianity is clearly becoming more popular, he decided to get baptized.
I encourage people to watch the following video in order to decide whether or not you feel that his religious conversion is sincere or not. I showed it to my mom, who is a devout Christian, and she didn’t see anything wrong with it.
Personally, I don’t think that what Brand was a cynical PR move. Not at all. What he did was brilliant. Baptism is a sacred ceremony meant to wash away one’s sins. By getting baptized, Brand was acknowledging that his earlier actions were immoral, and that he had turned from his old ways.
Given what I know about his life, this all checks out to me. After all, Brand is very much into the 12 steps, which means that he has already turned his life over to a higher power. He is clearly a Deist with a conscience. He’s also married with kids. I don’t think he’s going out there and trying to bang teenagers now.
It really makes you think. Other than getting baptized, what else would you want Brand to do? Slink into the shadows for the rest of his life? Renounce his activism? Pay restitution? Be imprisoned? Say sorry? Do penitence? Self-flagellate?
Now, I don’t have the ability to peer into his soul, but it appears that Brand has already changed his ways, and is now doing good things in the world. It’s one thing to say that it was wrong for him to fuck a 16-year-old girl. It’s another to say what he should do about it now. I don’t know if there’s anything better than he could have done than get baptized and continue doing God’s work by spreading the truth.
Also, I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel that bad for this girl. If the worst thing that’s ever happened to this girl is that she fucked a movie star, she’s doing okay. A lot of women I know started having sex at sixteen (or younger), and I’m just not convinced that having sex at that age necessarily causes trauma.
When I was sixteen I’d already hitchhiked from Vancouver to Halifax on my own. Sixteen is young, sure, but it’s highly debatable whether sixteen should be considered a child. You definitely couldn’t tell me what to do at sixteen, and you talk to anarchist women, you’ll realize that a lot of them were the same.
Plus, did Brand even know how old this girl was? I’m guessing a coke-addicted anarchist movie star probably wasn’t checking IDs when he was picking up chicks… And you can’t tell me that you know how old a 16-year-old girl is by looking at her.
I don’t know about you, but I was ready to have sex at sixteen. And if you’re ready to have sex, doesn’t it follow that you’re ready to decide who to have sex with?
Whatever he did, his tune changed after the allegations and fallout. He’s been hanging around with right-wingers and abandoning his rabble-rousing rhetoric.
I think they’ve got him under control.
In most of the US, 16 is the age of consent. That doesn't make him a pedophile or a hebephile.
It does show that he has questionable wisdom.