Perverse enjoyment in making others squirm on brand for Russell

Russell Brand has always enjoyed the sport of making someone feel uncomfortable – but he’s just a petulant adulation-seeking brat obsessed with his crotch.

Russell Brand was hailed as a punky comedic Lothario whose shock value and sexual prowess propelled him to stardom, however, after interviewing him at arguably the height of his fame, my memory is of a petulant attention and adulation-seeking brat who was obsessed with his crotch.

A far darker side of Brand has emerged in recent days after four women accused him of sexual offences, including rape, between 2006 and 2013, in a joint investigation conducted by London’s The Sunday Times and the UK’s Channel 4 program Dispatches.

Brand has denied each and every allegation.

Back in 2010 I interviewed Brand while he was in Melbourne with Jonah Hill promoting the film Get Him To The Greek.

British comedian Russel Brand is facing a string of sexual assault allegations. Picture: Tracey Nearmy

Brand was luxuriating in the power of his celebrity having reached a level of stardom at that stage where you could – in that era – pretty much guarantee good press by just turning up.

He was heavily into his fitness kick, with much being made of him setting out on an 8.5km run and doing a gym session just hours after arriving in town from Los Angeles.

While there were no cameras filming our chat at The Lyle Hotel in South Yarra – just the Herald Sun photographer setting up lights for the stills shoot post interview – I suspect I would have got a better interview had there been a TV audience for Brand to perform to.

As it was, his audience was not me.

It was clear his performance was for the amusement of his two gleeful, guffaw minions, one male and one female, who hung behind a bar in the room where we did the interview that was empty except for a couch.

Russell Brand appeared to pull Hayes close to him before planting a kiss on her lips. Picture: Nine

I perched awkwardly on the small couch while Brand, in a snug fitting blue jumper and sprayed on black jeans, lay back on the other end of the sofa and spread his legs wide open. He stayed in that provocative, crotch-on-display, legs akimbo position for the majority of the interview. It was weird.

With no other seating options in the room and not wanting to make an issue about how peculiar I found his posture, I took a deep breath, kept my eyes on his face and ploughed on through my questions, all the while thinking how ridiculous it was.

He delivered his usual word salad full of flowery phrases as answers.

In my experience Brand was a boring, ungenerous interviewee who enjoyed the sport of making someone – in this case me – feel uncomfortable or diminished.

He did nothing inappropriate towards me, I simply felt he was rude and unprofessional. I had a vague sense that he could be cruel.

The resulting story was a forgettable pedestrian and pointless plug for him and his film.

While I have listened over the years to people telling me how charming, brilliant and funny Brand was, that is not my memory.