Fifteen or so years ago, a radio producer told me he’d worked with Russell Brand.
After Brand had recorded his show, he’d go out onto the street where a crowd of young women awaited.
And he would take his pick – sometimes more than one, pointing them out and whisking them off.
It’s not exactly role model behaviour, but he’d be far from the first celebrity to have groupies.
I assumed – as I think anyone even witnessing these events did, that everything was consensual.
A possible darker truth is now coming to light. Some object to a TV show in the form of C4’s Dispatches – and the Times and Sunday Times newspapers – trialling Brand by media, as opposed to in a court of law. I see that argument.
But what’s the alternative? That he can’t be investigated? The journalism on display was first class – years of research and interviews checked and double checked before they aired. Brand was given the right to reply and denied all allegations.
Some say it’s all a conspiracy theory. But what did the investigation find? The woman who says she was raped visiting a rape crisis centre afterwards.
What of her distressed text after the alleged rape, the investigation showed to be from her phone – and the profuse apology shown to be from Brand’s phone?
While it’s progress that these details are coming to light, there’s an overwhelming feeling of depression they allegedly happened in the first place – that these women felt they couldn’t come forward.
But if there is a silver lining it’s that – as someone who’s worked in media, across newspapers, television and radio, for almost 25 years – I genuinely believe the landscape of abuse of sexual power has transformed in the last decade.
Cases coming to light and movements like #metoo have redressed the balance which was so overwhelmingly with powerful men.
There was a culture of cocooning stars, of allowing them to do what they wanted because they brought in viewers and millions in revenue.
God complexes were allowed to grow and even when caught, these men didn’t think they’d done wrong. From my experience, they still don’t.
But now, I believe women feel more able to voice concerns. This is partly because bosses are running scared, caught out for failing women – like those who suffered over decades at the hands of Jimmy Savile.
Hopefully that landscape has changed not just within media but in every workplace.
The allegations surrounding Brand seem to be at least a decade old. It was a different time. That’s not to say abuse doesn’t happen now; that women are not scared to speak up. Things need still to get better.
But from what I see – and the many people in media, men and women, I work with and speak to – things have changed dramatically. There’s not much positivity around stories like Brand’s – but if there’s a chink of light, that’s it.
