Just minutes after a British jury found Russell Brand guilty of rape and sexual assault last week, Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News host, went live to her 4.1 million subscribers on YouTube and expressed her shock at the verdict.
“I don’t believe the charges,” Kelly said, “and I don’t have to believe them just because the jury came through with the opposite conclusion.” She added, “I feel indignant that this obvious conservative stalwart has been targeted.”
A day later, Elon Musk chimed in. Replying to another user’s post on X mocking Brand’s conviction for offenses more than a decade old, the tech mogul called it an example of “a crazy legal standard.” (England does not have a statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.)
Although Brand, a former comedy and movie star who was born in Britain, may not be a household name in the United States, his conspiracy-minded videos on YouTube, where he has over 6.6 million subscribers, has to some Americans made him an anti-establishment flag-bearer. Brand also posted clips to X, where he has more than 10 million followers, and to Rumble, the video-sharing platform that pitches itself as a home for free speech.
On Monday, a British judge sentenced Brand to 10 and a half years in prison for one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. The episodes included one in which Brand had anal sex with a woman without her consent, she said, leaving her bleeding and in pain (Brand said the woman had consented).
Brand was found not guilty of two other counts of rape and one count of attempted indecent assault.
Kelly, in her recent live YouTube video, called Brand a “conservative commentator the size of Joe Rogan,” although she said his politics were “closer to” Tucker Carlson’s.
Brand often interviewed, or was interviewed by, U.S. political commentators like Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens who are less well known in Britain. He frequently riffed on issues that have become hobbyhorses of those skeptical of creeping government authority, including Covid-19 vaccination campaigns and efforts to digitalize society.
Robert Topinka, a researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, who has studied Brand’s YouTube output, said in an interview that the comedian’s videos seemed aimed at reaching Americans who believe “the mainstream media and elites and big corporations are combining to control us.”
Since Brand’s conviction, some X users have posted that they believe the case was politically motivated, or to claim that Brand was being persecuted, in part, because he is a Christian. The conservative commentator Ryan Samuels pointed to a lack of forensic evidence to argue that the verdict was a “shameful display of justice.”
As Topinka noted, both Brand and some of his high-profile supporters have long claimed that the accusations against him were part of a news media and political conspiracy.
In 2024, Donald Trump Jr. said in an interview with Brand that similar sex accusations had “happened to my father.” In April, Carlson told Brand that he believed the star was facing “a real jail term” because he “spoke against the people in power.”
Unlike Kelly and Musk, Carlson has so far remained silent on the verdict against Brand. A representative for Carlson did not respond to several interview requests.
Brand had a twisty route to his position. Rico Isaacs, an academic at the University of Lincoln in England who has published a study of Brand’s YouTube videos, said in an interview that a decade ago Brand was widely perceived as a left-wing figure. In 2013, appearing on the prominent BBC News program “Newsnight,” Brand said Britain should adopt a “socialist egalitarian” political system to benefit “underserved, impoverished populations.”
That interview excited many British political commentators and, in 2014, Brand started a YouTube series called “The Trews.” There, he discussed the news and political ideas with guests, including a prominent British environmentalist and Ed Miliband, who was then the leader of the Labour Party in Britain.
That same year, Brand returned to “Newsnight” to discuss “Revolution,” his book that expanded on his calls for social change. “Let me be absolutely clear,” he said. “I don’t trust politicians — no one does.”
Isaacs said that it was really only during the coronavirus pandemic that Brand’s videos became more conservative and conspiratorial. About that time, Brand also leaned more toward a U.S. audience by regularly interviewing prominent figures like Carlson.
In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Brand appeared at a rally featuring other anti-establishment figures, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In September, Brand shared a stage with high-ranking U.S. health officials, including Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A spokesman for Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
Isaacs said Brand’s reach was helped by his conversion to Christianity in 2024, adding that as his trial approached, Brand increasingly focused on issues of faith in his videos.
Isaacs said he could not see Brand’s followers leaving him over the conviction. “Once he’s got true believers,” he said, “he’s got true believers.”
Before Brand was sentenced on Monday, a group of his supporters held a large banner outside the courthouse proclaiming his innocence. “Christ was crucified for telling the truth,” the banner said: “Russell is the truth.”
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