Even by Russell Brand’s standards, it was an audacious display. As he arrived at a comedy awards ceremony staged by the now-defunct lads’ magazine Loaded, photographers caught the comedian openly looking down the low-cut white top of nurse-turned-glamour model Abi Titmuss.
Cameras continued to flash as Brand entered Sketch, the then-fashionable London celebrity venue, where he was due to be named the funniest man of 2006. Later, he reportedly told Titmuss, the former girlfriend of disgraced This Morning presenter John Leslie: “You like sex too. You are filthy, aren’t you?”
It was hardly an isolated episode. Throughout the Noughties, Brand was a familiar presence on London’s party circuit, pursuing women in his trademark black clothes: an open shirt, spray-on black jeans and cowboy boots. “He leched at girls for fun,” one former associate tells me. I did not need persuading.
I was there too, during the years when Brand was considered one of the most desirable guests for any media-industry party.
He seemed to be everywhere, and so was I. As a showbusiness gossip columnist for a tabloid newspaper, I often stayed out until the early hours alongside Brand and his circle. The difference was that I was chasing a story, not a sexual conquest.
Back then, headlines treated Brand’s behaviour with a wink, calling him “Randy Russ” or a “Lanky Lothario”. Those labels now look not merely outdated but dangerously misleading. In my view, he was a predator.
Russell Brand, pictured in 2009, was frequently seen leaving London clubs with women during the Noughties
At a 2006 awards ceremony, the comedian was photographed looking down the low-cut white top of nurse-turned-glamour model Abi Titmuss
I remember seeing him at the 2006 NME Music Awards, which he hosted at London’s Hammersmith Palais. During the ceremony, Sir Bob Geldof called Brand a “c***” on stage amid rumours that he had been pursuing Geldof’s daughter Peaches, who was not yet 17.
Yet even after that public rebuke, I watched in disbelief as Brand continued to flirt aggressively with Peaches after the show. Her age appeared to concern him not at all.
At another alcohol-fuelled event, the National Comedy Awards, fellow journalists and I watched as Brand followed Charlotte Church around the former ITV headquarters on London’s South Bank.
Wherever Brand went, it seemed, a woman was never far away — whether she welcomed the attention or not.
One early morning, after a Teenage Cancer Trust concert, I made my way to the Maddox Club in Mayfair.
Brand was there, draped over a model associated with Vivienne Westwood who went by the name Jordan.
David Walliams reacts to Jonathan Ross’s recently resurfaced “joke” at the 2004 British Comedy Awards about the comedian “taking home” 15-year-olds
Ross described Brand and Great British Bake Off host Noel Fielding as “two of the best-known c***smen in the business”
Their apparent romance was brief. Soon after Brand ended it, I was told he had behaved appallingly towards her. One associate put it bluntly: “Girls’ feelings don’t matter to Russell.”
For the organisations that employed him — including Channel 4, where he hosted Big Brother’s Big Mouth, and Radio 2, where he presented a Saturday evening show in the mid-2000s — such conduct should have prompted condemnation. Instead, it appeared to enhance his appeal. The Noughties were a permissive, grubby period: money was plentiful, alcohol flowed freely at parties and celebrities were paid generously to attend. Women were drawn to the famous men on guest lists, while cocaine was widespread.
Brand’s social circle also included television host Jonathan Ross and comedian Noel Fielding. A journalist friend was once invited by Fielding, then best known for The Mighty Boosh, to a gloomy basement flat in Camden. I went along. Brand was in a corner with a woman, while others sat in a circle taking turns to snort cocaine.
Fielding, who later acknowledged taking pills, magic mushrooms, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine, was unkind to my friend that night. He was also a conspicuous figure in Camden’s fashionable venues, including The Hawley Arms, and developed an unusual friendship with Pixie Geldof while she was still at school.
I once saw the pair shopping at Urban Outfitters on Kensington High Street. Fielding had a devoted following among music and celebrity publicists, who trailed him to gigs at the Kentish Town Forum and drinks at the nearby Pineapple pub. Whenever I encountered him, he projected an unmistakable air of arrogance.
Ross was not a partygoer in quite the same way, but Brand and Fielding treated him as a senior figure in British comedy. The recently resurfaced “joke” he made at the 2004 British Comedy Awards about disgraced comedian David Walliams “taking home” 15-year-olds captures the era’s casual hostility towards women.
The television host, who moved in Brand’s circle, released a statement on Tuesday seeking to distance himself from the remarks
MORE STORY: Mormon Wives Star Aspyn Ovard Reveals Daughter’s Terminal Cancer Diagnosis
On Tuesday, Ross issued a statement attempting to explain his role. “This joke was submitted to me by the Comedy Awards scriptwriting team and I believed that the punchline was a reference to the fact he had publicly dated younger women, exaggerated for comic effect,” he said.
British comedy had become harsher than it was in the 1990s. Women working in comedy had long felt unwelcome, but Brand’s hypersexual persona and the crude humour of Little Britain also subjected female audiences to humiliation.
As Jo Brand once noted, the 2000s ushered in a wave of rape jokes, as if comedians were deliberately reviving the broad misogyny of the 1970s with an even more vicious edge. Jimmy Carr’s 2010 stage show, for instance, was titled Rapier Wit and included the line: “What do nine out of ten people enjoy? Gang rape.”
There was also the 2007 appearance on Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz of the Year, where Ross, Brand and Fielding joined host Carr, comedians Rob Brydon and David Mitchell, and the only woman on the panel, singer Lily Allen, who was then 21.
At one point, Ross called Brand and Fielding “two of the best-known c***smen in the business”. He also suggested swapping seats with Allen so she could sit nearer Brydon and Mitchell and “might go home with her dress still on”.
“How dare you, we’re not rapists,” Fielding declared, provoking a loud studio response. Carr then asked why Fielding was wearing a cape if he was not a rapist. Fielding replied that it was a Jack the Ripper cape and began, “He wasn’t a rapist, he was a…” before Brand completed the thought: “Serial murderer.”
Brand then added: “There is no direct corollary between rapes and capes; it’s just a rhyme.
“Leave him alone. What if, horror of horrors, he ain’t even done a rape? You could ruin his reputation.”
Women were expected to laugh along with supposedly “taboo-busting” material or risk being dismissed as prudish. In a culture that so often shamed and judged them, it is hardly surprising that many felt unable to challenge men who behaved like rogues, creeps or criminals. In British comedy and television, it is increasingly clear that such men were often the ones with the power.
A friend sent me the clip last week. After watching it, I replied: “Sadly, that was 2007 — stuff like that was happening everywhere.”
But why was that the case? What made the 2000s such a particularly toxic decade for women?
The 1990s had brought intense interest in British culture, and many young women looked to prominent figures such as Tracey Emin, Zoe Ball and Kate Moss, who appeared to be living according to their own rules. The party scene was chaotic, but it also seemed exciting. By the 2000s, however, the mood had darkened. The Spice Girls’ cartoon version of girl power gave way to the vulnerability associated with Britney Spears in pigtails and Amy Winehouse’s devastating addictions.
Big Brother produced a stream of aspiring celebrities who plunged into the nightclub circuit and sought relationships with famous men. London’s bars and clubs were thriving; on some nights I received six or seven invitations to celebrity events. Gossip magazines were booming too. Getting photographed with a star inside a party, then being captured by paparazzi on the way out, was considered a major coup.
For some men, that hedonistic atmosphere fostered the belief that women were “up for it”. Women were becoming more confident and visible in music and comedy, and certain men appeared to view that independence as an intrusion into territory they considered theirs. Brand’s remark to Abi Titmuss — that women who came of age in the 1990s were “filthy too” — reflected that ugly attitude.
There is no question that male celebrities were treated like idols. Today, many are far more cautious about their conduct. In the pre-smartphone era, there was often no photographic record of what happened. This kind of tawdry womanising was not confined to comedy; it was also common across television and among high-profile footballers.
My sister reminded me this week of an evening at Funky Buddha, the Mayfair club I visited every Tuesday in search of stories. We were chatting when a boyband star put his hand up her skirt. It happened in 2005, and if I could identify him, people would be shocked. My sister was deeply affected and still speaks about it today.
Footballers were no different. In 2005, a former England player approached me at London’s Embassy club, touched my leg and said: “Cor, I like a pair of nice, strong legs.” He then offered to take me home. When I refused and said I could pay for my own taxi, he replied with a wink: “Your loss.”
This behaviour was widespread. Celebrities would ask friends whether a prospective conquest was “safe” — meaning she could be trusted not to sell her story to the press. Many women did so anyway.
In the mid-2000s, few footballers appeared more frequently in the red-top press for alleged infidelity than England player John Terry. On one occasion, he reportedly had sex with a woman with a broken leg at the Embassy, a favourite venue of his Chelsea teammates. After I met him there, he sent me a stream of explicit and disturbing messages, as he did to several other women.
I also witnessed footballers asking friends to identify women in nightclubs and entice them to Chinawhite, another popular venue. The club attracted figures including Calum Best, son of George Best, and former EastEnders actor Dean Gaffney. I regularly saw both men speaking to glamour models and Page 3 girls. They occupied the club’s “top table” alongside their manager, Dave Read, who maintained an extensive list of models he could introduce to them.
There were also reports of a particularly abusive sexual practice known as “roasting”. I narrowly avoided a similar situation during a 2005 trip to Marbella, when a well-known Premier League player invited me to his hotel room for a drink after a pool party. Two of his friends arrived soon afterwards.
I ran, feeling extraordinarily fortunate to have got away.
In the wake of the allegations surrounding Russell Brand, one can only hope that women are safer in the entertainment industries — and that more decent men are willing to challenge misconduct when they see it.