Men like Russel Brand were and are the rule, not exception in media culture

A decade before #MeToo and ‘cancelled’ entered the mainstream, laughing off celebrities like Russell Brand was the norm, even if you were the victim of something criminal, writes Mikaela Wilkes.

A decade before #MeToo and ‘cancelled’ entered the cultural vernacular, celebrities like Russell Brand were the norm, and so was laughing off sexual harassment.

Contemplating the notion of crossing the line, Brand once remarked: “As I always say, there is no line. People draw that line in afterwards to f--k you up.”

Far from an anomaly, the comedian-cum-Hollywood star was a mascot for a noughties media culture that routinely dehumanised and hypersexualized young women.

Here we all are in the afterwards.

Russell Brand leaves the Troubabour Wembley Park theatre in north-west London after performing a comedy set. He faces claims about his sexual behaviour at the height of his fame. He has vehemently denied the allegations. .Photo by James Manning/PA Images.

London’s Metropolitan Police have urged more women to come forward after a fifth accuser alleged sexual assault dating back to 2003, three years prior to four previously reported allegations from the height of Brand’s fame between 2006 and 2013.

Brand, who has not been charged, denied the allegations in a video posted to X, saying “during that time of promiscuity,” his relationships were “absolutely always consenual”.

As police and media dig further back into the period of the allegations, past comments from female journalists, ex-girlfriends and former co-stars cast Brand’s widely-accepted antics in the cold light of 2023.

Russell Brand gives Samantha Armytage a kiss. Picture: Channel Seven.

Instead of being seen as a breach of professionality at best, and potentially harassment, TV networks saw the incidents as a PR opportunity.

Veteran TV presenter Samantha Armytage described Brand as “touchy feely” and “pretty full on” to Confidential, recalling her 2009 Sunrise interview.

The Farmer Wants a Wife host appeared highly uncomfortable in the clip, yet Sunrise packaged up the uninvited advances as an “infamous encounter” for promotion.

Armytage’s co-host Andrew O’Keefe described Brand as “a well known womaniser … a bit of a Don Juan, which is why we sent Sam to meet him,” he said while laughing.

At least three onlookers laughed at entertainment reporter Fifi Box, as Brand straddled then kissed her during her 2010 Sunrise interview for film Get Him to the Greek.

At one point in the video when Box laughed, Brand said: “When you laugh like that, it makes me know what you would sound like when you [orgasm]. And I like it”.

Two years later, a crowd of what appeared to be the actor’s entourage watched on as Brand planted a kiss on TV legend Liz Hayes’ lips and tried to unclip her bra for a 2012 episode of 60 minutes.

Australian TV networks gleefully offered up female journalists to Brand, year after year, despite this behaviour being an industry “open secret.”

Among the claims in former employer Channel 4’s Dispatches investigation into the star, there was a clip from his BBC Radio 2 show in 2007 that seemed to have gone largely unnoticed at the time.

In it, Brand interviewed Jimmy Savile and apparently offered up his “very attractive” assistant to go to meet him naked.

British comedian and actor Russell Brand at the Park Hyatt in Sydney in 2010. Photo: The Daily Telegraph.

The programme also reminded us how, also in 2007, Brand boasted of his sexual fantasies about an “erotic” Radio 2 newsreader, and exposed himself in the studio while urinating in a bottle in front of colleagues and guests.

The only answer for the victimised women then was to laugh it off.

Spanish public prosecutors demanded on September 8, 2023 that suspended football chief Luis Rubiales be indicted for sexual assault over his unsolicited kiss on the lips of player Jenni Hermoso at the Women's World Cup final. Photo: Franck Fife/AFP.

Spanish star Jenni Hermoso has been cut from the Spanish national squad as a result of the World Cup kiss scandal. Photo: Steve Christo/AFP.

To gauge how much has changed in a very short space of time, we need only look to last month’s Women’s World Cup final.

Spanish soccer federation chief Luis Rubiales eventually succumbed to global pressure to quit his post, after he gave an unsolicited kiss to player Jenni Hermoso.

Spain’s new coach Montse Tome subsequently dumped her from the national squad on Monday, for “her protection”.

Women still must choose between laughing it off, and forfeiting their career to get justice.