JokersUpdates.com: News Stand - Russell Brand admitted to ‘exploitative’ sexual behavior with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30, but claimed it was ‘consensual.’ He currently awaits trial.

Russell Brand, who will soon stand trial for rape, admitted to “exploitative” sexual behavior but insisted it was lawful. Brand went on Megyn Kelly’s radio show yesterday to explain himself publicly. There, he admitted to having sex with a 16-year-old teenager when he was 30 but also claimed it was consensual. “When I was 30, I was a very different person,” he said. “I was a lot younger, and I was an immature 30-year-old. Consensual sex with a lot of people, when there is a strong power differential, as there is when you are a famous man who has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think involves exploitation. I think it is exploitative.”

“I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish and I did not apply enough consideration, barely any, I suppose, really, to how that sex was affecting other people,” he continued.

Brand is currently facing three charges of rape, three allegations of sexual assault, and one charge of indecent assault. His trial is scheduled to begin in Britain on October 12. The police investigations into Brand started in 2023, after the Times, the Sunday Times, and Channel 4 jointly researched Brand’s sexual history. The investigation discovered four women who alleged he sexually assaulted them between 2006 and 2013.

Brand has reinvented himself in recent years as a right-wing Christian manosphere influencer. He claimed to Kelly that the investigation began because he was “openly critical of the pharmaceutical industry, the British government, bureaucratic agencies that have unelected power.” “I believe in God,” he added. “So all things are from God. This is from God. I don’t like it very much. And it is extremely stressful.”

https://www.vulture.com/article/russell-brand-exploitative-consensual-sex.html?utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=vulture&utm_source=bluesky