Four days after a London judge sentenced Russell Brand to over 10 years in prison for rape and sexual assault, a documentary released Friday on Netflix examines the crimes behind his downfall alongside his rise to fame in the early 2000s and his shape-shifting career.
The documentary, “Russell Brand: Open Secret,” also features some of the journalists whose investigations into his behavior helped lead to the police inquiry and the trial.
Here are seven key takeaways from the 80-minute film.
Comedians’ chatter prompted the journalists’ investigation
Public accusations against Brand first appeared in September 2023, when The Times of London and other British news outlets published an investigation that included a woman saying Brand had raped her.
The Netflix show features Rosamund Urwin, the article’s lead reporter, who says that she started investigating Brand in January 2019 after learning that some comedians had publicly discussed Brand, including ending their shows by saying, essentially, “Russel Brand’s a rapist.”
Brand did little to hide his behavior
In the documentary, Charlotte Wace, another Times of London reporter who worked on the investigation, recalls reading Brand’s books in which he documented his sex addiction and such episodes as once spitting on a prostitute’s face.
“What kind of man was I, treating women in this way?” Brand writes in his 2010 memoir, “Booky Wook 2.” “If this is what I’m telling you, can you imagine what’s being left out?”
Wace says she kept that quote in mind as she worked on the investigation.
Brand’s relationship with his father was difficult
The documentary includes home-video footage of Brand practicing for early stand-up routines and performing short sets, stark videos of him taking drugs, and footage from a TV show in which Brand fights his father, Ronald Brand, in a boxing ring.
Growing up, according to his books, Brand had a difficult relationship with his father; and when Brand was 17, his father took him to Thailand, where they both had sex with prostitutes, sometimes in the same room. The documentary features the father and son reminiscing about that trip.
Britain’s ‘Noughties’ culture allowed Brand to thrive
The Netflix show gives non-British viewers an insight into Britain’s culture during the early 2000s, when Brand was rising to fame.
It was an era in which tabloid newspapers celebrated sexual promiscuity — one awarded Brand its “shagger of the year” prize times years in a row — and also a time of “lads” and “ladettes,” British slang for young women who acted as boorishly as their male counterparts.
In the Netflix show, Amanda Alguero Alejos, one of Brand’s former girlfriends, says that during this time Brand became a sex addict — and after that became “totally different.”
A former girlfriend tried to expose his behavior in 2014
The Netflix documentary features an interview with Jordan Martin, another of Brand’s former girlfriends, who self-published an anonymous 2014 memoir memoir in she recounted being assaulted by a barely disguised man called “Randall Grand.” In the documentary, Martin says that passage from the book retold an episode in which, after an argument, Brand forced a finger inside her and then walked away without saying anything.
In the documentary, Martin also recalls dating Brand during the filming of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” the 2008 movie that brought him fame in the United States. Martin says that Brand asked her to accompany him to Hawaii for the filming “to stop him from trying it on with people on set.” (It didn’t work, Martin said — he had sex with a yoga teacher.)
While there, Martin says, Brand was controlling, telling her that he was uncomfortable with her sunbathing and that she was dressing “like an attention-seeking tart.” She also says that during their time together, Brand watched over her while making her brush her teeth until her gums bled.
Unwin, the reporter, says in the Netflix film that she learned during her investigation that rumors about Brand’s behavior were swirling around Hollywood “certainly by 2013.”
Brand crossed paths with others who have come under scrutiny
The documentary includes video of Brand on a private plane with Sean Combs, in which the disgraced music mogul calls Brand his “new best friend” and asks him to provide “the whores” during a trip to Las Vegas.
“I’m not a misogynist — I’m against that kind of language,” Brand replies. “I like to think of them as damsels.”
The documentary also includes a clip from a radio show of Brand chatting with David Walliams, the British comedian who this week was accused of exploiting his celebrity to prey on women and teenagers as young as 15. Walliams has denied grooming women or having sexual contact with a 15-year-old.
Further women level accusations against Brand
Just hours before the Netflix documentary was released, The Times of London published further accusations from six women against Brand, including one woman who says that in 2015 he tried to drag her into a bathroom, leaving her frightened that he would sexually assault her.
In the Netflix film, an actor portrays one of the anonymous women in that new investigation. She says that while she was dating Brand, he had sex with her without a condom, despite her repeated pleas for him to stop. “I tried to kick him off,” the woman says. “He just pinned my hands back behind my head, and he just forced himself into me.”
The Times of London said in its investigation on Thursday that it had put all of the new accusations to Brand’s lawyer, and that he had initially asked for further time to respond, and then stopped responding to the newspaper.
Brand testified in court that all of his past sexual encounters were consensual.
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