Noel Fielding once said he “occasionally” meditated with Russell Brand and joked with him about sex involving “underage insects”, despite later insisting that his connection with the comedian was strictly professional.
The 53-year-old Bake Off presenter said he was “horrified and deeply disturbed” after Brand was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison for rape and three sexual assaults.
Following Brand’s four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court, Fielding said he had been “completely unaware” of the offences and described their relationship as professional rather than personal.
However, footage has since resurfaced showing Fielding telling Lorraine Kelly that he had meditated with Brand, along with another clip in which the pair made disturbing jokes about sex involving underage insects.
Fielding, who appeared regularly on The Russell Brand Show, can be heard referring to grasshoppers and asking Brand: “So how do you even know if it’s a child or an adult? You don’t even care, do you?”
As the pair laughed during the episode, broadcast on October 13, 2007, Brand replied with a grin: “It’s a mistake I’ve made. I’ve had a lot of problems in the past because I have thought a grasshopper was above age.
“Before I know it, I’m in it, right? I’m kissing it, I’m holding it, then it turns around at me, looks at me with like onyx eyes, and says I’m 12. I go, it’s a grasshopper. It’s a grasshopper.”
Fielding, who was nicknamed one of the “Goth Detectives” alongside Brand because of their similar appearance, apologised for the “horrible and inappropriate” jokes. He said he had not had contact with Brand for many years.
Despite maintaining that their association was professional, another clip from a Good Morning Britain interview shows Fielding discussing meditation sessions with Brand during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Noel Fielding said his relationship with Russell Brand, pictured in 2012, was professional rather than personal after Brand’s convictions for rape and sexual assault
Newly resurfaced footage shows Fielding and Brand making jokes about sex involving underage insects
Asked by Lorraine about the sessions, Fielding joked that he and Brand had “occasionally” meditated together, although he found it difficult to take the practice seriously.
“Yeah, we do; we meditate together,” he said with a laugh, imitating Brand telling him to take the exercise “very seriously” and not to interrupt with questions because it would distract him from entering a “deep” meditation.
The Mighty Boosh comedian appeared to distance himself from his former collaborator, with whom he worked on comedy programmes and panel shows during the 2000s and 2010s, as pressure grew for him to address Brand’s convictions.
The revelations come as BBC and Channel 4 executives face renewed questions about Brand’s conduct. He previously claimed that his BBC boss, Lesley Douglas, had been “incredibly tolerant” of his inappropriate sexual behaviour while he was a presenter.
Fielding told The Sun: “I was horrified and deeply disturbed to learn of Russell Brand’s crimes, which I was completely unaware of until they became public knowledge. My thoughts are with the women whose courage brought him to justice.
“I appeared on TV, radio and live charity shows with him, and while we played up our relationship for the cameras and in the media, I considered it a professional relationship rather than a personal one. I have had no contact with him for many years.
“Looking back at some of the jokes I made alongside him, I was appalled. They were horrible and inappropriate, and I deeply regret them.”
He repeated that he had not been in contact with Brand for many years.
Other uncomfortable exchanges involving Fielding and Brand have also resurfaced following the trial, including a joke during Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz in which they referred to themselves as rapists in front of Lily Allen in 2007.
In another interview with Lorraine Kelly on Good Morning Britain, the Mighty Boosh co-creator said he had “occasionally” meditated with Brand during the Covid-19 lockdown
In 2023, singer Madeleine described that moment to Grazia UK as “really horrendous”, saying she had remained silent because of the culture at the time.
Fielding also referred to Brand’s reputation for promiscuity in a 2016 interview, when he was asked whether he would join him on tour.
“I’m game if Russell is. I think a Goth Detectives tour could be fun. A sort of Agatha Christie whodunnit,” he said in the BBC interview.
“Someone would get murdered — not for real — and then we would look for the murderer. I’d hunt for clues while Russell seduced the first four rows of the venue. He’s trying to cut down.”
The interview was accompanied by a photograph of the pair on Instagram, although the image has since been removed.
The resurfaced material includes footage from their appearance on Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz of the Year, as well as another video in which Brand joked about raping a woman.
In the now-deleted YouTube clip, recorded for Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast in 2013, Brand described himself as a “mundane bloke… from a single-parent family” who had become a “pretty comprehensive show-off”.
Herring and the audience then laughed when Brand broke the silence by saying: “Oh, I’ve raped someone once” and “killed her after”.
In the same recording, he joked about the ancient Greeks having sex with children while developing mathematics, saying: “They didn’t mind it, did they? They were clever, weren’t they.”
He then mimed a sexual act and said: “I’ve done another triangle. I’m f***ing a little kid. This is great. F**k the kid with the triangle. No, that’s too much.”
He also made jokes about adults, including babysitters, carrying out sexual acts in front of children, including himself.
In the deleted interview with Herring, Brand also described himself as a “sex narcissist” and said: “Look at the women in this room. Even a bold estimate would be that I’ve slept with half of them. Currently.”
Brand was convicted of raping a 21-year-old fan whom he had selected from the audience after one of his Hammersmith Apollo performances in 2009.
The woman, overwhelmed by Brand’s fame, agreed to visit his £2.3 million home in Hampstead several days later to have sex.
She told the court that the encounter began with Brand unnervingly ordering her to undress, shower and brush her teeth before they went to bed.
Brand, who was 33 at the time, pushed the woman face down into a pillow on his “enormous” bed and removed his condom while raping her, leaving her struggling to breathe.
Russell Brand, 51, was convicted of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others before receiving a ten-and-a-half-year prison sentence
Hi, I’m Alex Matthews, Editor of The Crime Desk.
Russell Brand has been convicted of rape and three sexual assaults. Our reporters Caroline Cheetham and Liz Hull were in court throughout the trial and later spoke to Detective Inspector Laura Nelson, who explained why the women who accused Brand in the documentary were not involved in the rape trial.
The woman was left bleeding and later said Brand ordered her to “clean up the mess you’ve made” before switching on the television to watch the science-fiction series Quantum Leap.
During the trial, prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones described women as a “disposable commodity” to Brand and referred to him as “a sexual predator”.
“They didn’t matter to him. He didn’t even need to know their names. They were just a means to an end,” she told the court.
The woman said she later told Brand: “You treated me like an animal,” to which he replied: “I’m sorry.”
Other women told the court that Brand had forced them into sexual activity, sometimes within seconds of meeting them, while using his celebrity status in pursuit of his stated ambition to sleep with 5,000 women.
After the four-week trial and eight and a half hours of jury deliberations, Brand was convicted of the 2009 rape and of sexually assaulting an MTV employee at a party in Soho. He was acquitted of orally raping the woman in a toilet afterwards.
The born-again Christian, who said he wore the “full armour of God” in court, was also convicted of sexually assaulting a Capital Radio employee whom he encountered in a corridor in 2005.
He was additionally convicted of sexually assaulting a Channel 4 employee during a forced massage in 2009. He was acquitted of two rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault.
Brand now faces a further police investigation after at least eight women accused him of sexual abuse and predatory behaviour following his convictions.
The Daily Mail has contacted Noel Fielding’s representatives for comment.