British actor and comedian Russell Brand said in a recent podcast interview that he had “exploitative” consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30.
Brand’s comments on U.S. media personality Megyn Kelly’s podcast come as he awaits trial in the U.K. over rape and sexual assault allegations brought by six women who have accused him of various offences between 1999 and 2009.
During the podcast, the 50-year-old described his past self as “selfish” and an “exploiter of women.”
“I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30. When I was 30, I was a very different person. I was a lot younger, and I was an immature 30-year-old,” he said.
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Brand — who says he has since become a devout Christian and appeared on Kelly’s podcast to promote his new book, How to Become a Christian in 7 Days — added that his access to drugs and women at the height of his fame provided him with an opportunity for “endless consent that” led him to be a “hedonist” and a “fool.”
Speaking on the current sexual assault allegations against him and his pending trial, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall actor said, “What I’m obviously not only querying but violently, aggressively, assertively opposing is the idea that this [having sex with an abundance of women] is a judicial criminal matter where consent was overridden … actually, what happened was consent was directed,” Brand said.
“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,” he added, later estimating that he had sexual contact with “thousands” of women between the mid-1990s and 2015.
The age of consent in the U.K., where Brand is from and will go on trial in October, is 16, but there are additional protections in place to safeguard children under 18, including against people in positions of trust or power, according to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
Brand, who is facing three charges of rape, three allegations of sexual assault and one charge of indecent assault, has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
When the first batch of charges was announced in April, he said that he welcomed the opportunity to prove his innocence.
“I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord,” he said in a social media video. “I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile. But what I never was, was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”
The Get Him to the Greek actor has dropped out of the mainstream media in recent years, and built a large alt-following online with videos that mix wellness, conspiracy theories and religion.
His trial is scheduled to begin at Southwark Crown Court in central London on Oct. 12, during which his six accusers will have the opportunity to speak to their claims.
A court heard earlier that Brand faced allegations including raping a woman in a hotel room during a Labour Party conference in southern England, groping a television worker and later forcing her into a men’s bathroom where he sexually assaulted her, and kissing and groping a radio employee after pinning her against a wall.
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