LONDON — British comedian and actor Russell Brand pleaded ‘not guilty’ to all charges of rape and multiple counts of sex assault at a London court Friday.
The 49-year-old showed up at the Southwark Crown Court in a black blazer with an unbuttoned striped shirt and dark jeans.
Local media reported that the comedian, actor and right-wing social media influencer was accompanied by his lawyer, Oliver Schneider-Sikorsky, who successfully defended the actor Kevin Spacey against sex assault allegations in 2023.
As he arrived at the courtroom, Brand appeared composed and smiled at the media before taking a seat in the middle of the dock.
Prosecutors agreed to the confirmed trial date of June 3, 2026, with pretrial review expected to be held next May.
Brand, who stood up as the charges were read out to him, pleaded ‘not guilty’ on all five counts.
The judge said that Brand’s conditional bail would continue, a condition with which prosecutors agreed. He then left the dock and thanked a member of staff on his way out of the courtroom.
He previously appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court earlier this month to hear the details of the allegations against him.
Court documents detailing the charges said that Brand had indecently assaulted a woman in 2001 by “grabbing her arm and dragging her towards a male toilet.” In a separate instance in 2004, he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman by touching her breasts without her consent.
London police first charged Brand on April 4 with rape, oral rape, indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault in cases related to four separate women between 1999 and 2005.
The charges came after detectives began investigating in September 2023, after The Sunday Times newspaper and the British broadcaster Channel 4 first reported the allegations in which four women accused Brand of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse.
Brand has always denied having nonconsensual sex since the allegations first aired two years ago.
One woman said she was 16 (the age of consent in the United Kingdom) and Brand was 30 when they began a relationship that included abuse and sexual assault.
After he was charged, Brand said in a video on X, “I have never engaged in nonconsensual activity,” adding, “I am now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”
Born in Essex, Brand rose to fame in British television in the early 2000s, including a stint as a broadcaster on the BBC, from which he resigned in 2008.
He went on to star in numerous Hollywood films, including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” in 2008 and “Get Him to the Greek” in 2010, and married pop star Katy Perry in 2010 before the couple divorced 14 months later.
He later married Laura Gallacher in 2017, with whom he has three children. Last year, he said he had become a Christian.
Since fading from mainstream culture, Brand has become an outspoken critic of American politics and free speech in videos he posts on his YouTube channel.
In a separate video posted on X in September 2023, he said, “These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream … And as I’ve written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.”
“The relationships I had were very absolutely, always consensual,” he added, before suggesting there was an agenda against him in the mainstream media.
Astha Rajvanshi and Mahalia Dobson both reported from London.
