Russell Brand: 'Coordinated Attack'
Russell Brand says he's a victim of a coordinated attack against his reputation. Women however say he is a predator. Who is telling the truth?
Russell Brand, actor and podcaster, is entrapped in a reputation crisis wildfire.
A question is, did he set that fire as a reputation arsonist or was it set by others?
“The Times, the Sunday Times and Channel 4 reported that Brand has been accused of sexual assault and emotional abuse by several women between 2006 and 2013,” reports Thomas Seal at Bloomberg, adding that, “Brand posted a video to his 6.6 million YouTube followers calling the reports ‘a coordinated attack’ and said they contained ‘very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.’”
Brand claims that the warfare was “designed to discredit him because of his views. Danica Kirka at the Associated Press reports. “He has been criticized for expressing skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines and interviewing contentious podcasters like Joe Rogan.
He wonders, “is there another agenda at play.”
One woman alleges she was raped and three others claim they were victims of sexual assault. Another said in addition to being physically assaulted, Brand was emotionally abusive.
Why now is a common question in delays coming forward. There’s an answer.
“The women said that they only felt ready to tell their stories after being approached by reporters, with some citing Brand’s newfound prominence as an online wellness influencer as a factor in their decision to speak,” Kirka reports.
“These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies and, as I have written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous,” Brand says.
He went on to claim his innocence.
“Now during that time of promiscuity the relationships I had were absolutely, always consensual,” he asserts.
Who, I ask you, is telling the truth?
Are Brand’s comments ridiculously crazy, hurtful and offensive or are they plausible? It’s important to consider and examine the best we can with limited information:
Several women have complained, with similar stories.
Brand counters by saying he was in consensual relationships and he rejects the allegations of the scurrilous acts. He doesn’t however go deeper into whether he forced himself on — or otherwise abused — women, relationships or not.
Brand offers as a theory that his highly-publicized viewpoints have earned him enemies and that the claims of sexual misconduct and crime are a deviant, coordinated attack to, my words — smear his name and reputation.
Brand is already starting to pay a high price for the media reports, both with the negative publicity and YouTube’s punishment of him, preventing him from making money off the platform and pulling some of his shows from its online streaming service.
“YouTube said in a statement early Tuesday that it had ‘suspended monetization’ on Brand's channel for violating its ‘creator responsibility policy,’” adding that, “If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community.”
Brand has treacherous territory to traverse now, even if he is telling the truth, no matter how unlikely or impossible that seems in the minds of his critics.
In short, yes, believe it or not, Brand’s theory is plausible. Absolutely.
Yet it’s not a given. At all. The claims could very well be factual and truthful.
For now, Brand is the one bearing the heavy and painful responsibility, like it not, of humbly, sensitively and morally responsibly of responding and proving he did not do what is alleged and is not the person who the news reports infers.
It won’t be quick and easy — it rarely is — yet if Brand is telling the truth, it’s possible and he can work his way through it successfully. If he’s being dishonest however, Brand’s name, reputation and career might burn to ashes.
Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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