Russell Brand Admits to Sex with 16-Year-Old While Facing Rape Charges

Russell Brand made a stunning admission this week. Sitting across from Megyn Kelly on her YouTube show, the 50-year-old comedian confessed to having sex with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30 years old.

The admission comes as Brand prepares to stand trial in London on seven charges of rape and sexual assault involving six women. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. But his interview has ignited a firestorm of its own.

“The plain fact of it is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom, where I’m from, the age of consent is 16,” Brand told Kelly. “And I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30.”

He then added that he was a “very different person” at the time, “a lot younger” and “an immature 30-year-old.”

Brand did not stop at the admission. He spent several minutes reflecting on his past behavior, calling it “selfish” and “wrong.” He acknowledged that the power imbalance between a famous man and young women created a dynamic he now considers exploitative.

“Consensual sex with a lot of people, when there is a strong power differential, as there is when you’re a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think involves exploitation,” he said. “I think it is exploitative.”

He described himself as a “hedonist and a fool and an exploiter of women.” He said his fame fueled “opportunity for endless consent,” which he now believes needs to be “redeemed and addressed and atoned for.”

But he drew a hard line between moral failure and criminality. He insisted that while his conduct was “awful,” it was “lawful”,  because consent was never overridden.

The interview arrives just months before Brand’s trial is set to begin. He faces three charges of rape, three allegations of sexual assault, and one charge of indecent assault. The alleged incidents date from 1999 to 2009.

One accuser previously told investigators that Brand initiated a relationship with her when she was 16 and he was 30,  the same scenario he admitted to on Kelly’s show. She alleged that after he turned 31, he sexually assaulted her.

Other allegations include claims that Brand raped a woman in a hotel room while she attended a Labour Party conference in Bournemouth in 1999, and that he grabbed a TV worker’s breasts and orally raped her after dragging her into a male toilet in 2004.

Brand categorically denies all criminal allegations. In the interview, he framed the upcoming trial as a test of whether consensual sex between adults, even with large age gaps and power imbalances, can be prosecuted as a crime.

In a bizarre twist, Brand also used the same week to announce his intention to run for Mayor of London in 2028. He told Tucker Carlson’s podcast that he would operate a “pragmatic” democracy where decisions would be “opened up to the people who live in London.”

He acknowledged that he could be serving a jail sentence at the time of the election if he is found guilty at his October trial.

Brand’s trial is scheduled to begin on October 12 at Southwark Crown Court. It is expected to last up to eight weeks. He remains on bail while he awaits proceedings.

For now, the man who once hosted Big Brother’s Big Mouth and starred alongside Katy Perry has traded Hollywood for confession — but not the kind that comes with a guilty plea.