Russell Brand is “a seriously unwell sex addict”, according to Georgina Baillie, the woman at the centre of his infamous “Sachsgate” phone call.
Baillie, the granddaughter of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, was 21 and performing with a burlesque troupe known as the “Satanic Sluts” when she first met Brand. She said he immediately began pursuing her.
Their subsequent affair triggered a national media scandal that, in hindsight, might have ended Brand’s career permanently.
For Baillie, however, the consequences were intensely personal. She spiralled into alcohol and drug addiction, while her view of sex became increasingly destructive. She felt “worthless”, and her relationship with her grandfather never fully recovered.
Now 41, Baillie followed Brand’s trial closely.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, she said she was sickened that her former lover had forced his alleged victims to endure the ordeal of giving evidence.
Georgina Baillie, 41, says she was drawn into Russell Brand’s troubled world after the comedian called her grandfather, Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, to boast about having sex with her
Baillie was 21 and performing with the four-member gothic burlesque group the “Satanic Sluts” when she met Brand; she says their relationship was consensual
Her life was thrown into turmoil in 2008 when Brand and Jonathan Ross called Sachs and discussed her sex life, with the messages later broadcast on BBC Radio 2
Brand, now 51, faces a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted at Southwark Crown Court of rape and three counts of sexual assault
“Justice has been served,” Baillie said. “Although he never raped or assaulted me, as I have always made clear, I do not know what happened behind closed doors between the victims and Russell. Their evidence was compelling. He has been found guilty, and I now want Russell to put things right.”
She said she felt betrayed after learning more about her former boyfriend’s conduct. “I feel very sad and disappointed in him,” she added.
Brand, 51, is due to be sentenced next week after a three-week trial at Southwark Crown Court. Jurors heard disturbing accounts of his behaviour towards women over a decade, from 1999 to 2009.
During that same period, Baillie was among the women with whom he had sexual relationships. In her case, she described an on-off consensual affair lasting around two years before it became public in a deeply humiliating fashion.
In one of broadcasting’s most notorious misjudgements, Brand and BBC Radio 2 co-host Jonathan Ross called Sachs live on air and left messages referring to Brand’s relationship with his granddaughter.
The incident became known as “Sachsgate” and provoked a nationwide backlash.
For Baillie, the episode also destroyed her relationship with her beloved grandfather.
She did not see or speak to Sachs for eight years. Their only subsequent meeting came shortly before his death in 2016, when she visited him to apologise for the scandal.
She later developed serious problems with alcohol and drugs, experiences that shape the way she now views Brand.
“Russell Brand is a sex addict. It’s obvious to me,” Baillie said. “That boy is seriously unwell.”
“When I entered recovery from drugs and alcohol, I learned about cross-addiction: you put down one substance and replace it with a behaviour.
“If my drug of choice had been available three times a day in different bodies — meaning Brand’s sex addiction — I would have pursued it if I was unwell and not using the tools of recovery. I understand how that happens, and yes, he is a sex addict.”
Baillie stressed that describing Brand as an addict neither excuses nor diminishes his crimes.
“I am a survivor of sexual assault myself, and it is deeply disappointing that, if his memory was jogged, he could not simply be a grown man and make amends as he did for me,” she said. “I know he is capable of that.”
She was referring to Brand’s actions after the scandal. He was also recovering from drug addiction at the time and paid tens of thousands of pounds towards Baillie’s therapy and other medical costs, saying he felt responsible for what had happened.
Baillie remains grateful for the help that contributed to rebuilding her life, even though she believes Brand played a major role in destabilising it. She now hopes he will show the same willingness to help the women who accused him.
“He has been found guilty. He needs to make amends,” she said. “Taking responsibility is the first step. The second is doing whatever is necessary to help put these women’s lives back together.”
She added: “I want those victims to receive support. I truly do. Recovery is possible. I know from my own experience of sexual assault — though it was not at Russell’s hands — that it is difficult and takes a long time. But they can heal and begin to rebuild their lives.”
Only two complaints were made in the week after Brand’s radio broadcast. Once the Mail on Sunday reported the incident the following weekend and media coverage intensified, the total rose to 44,790.
Brand and Ross left four messages containing repeated and graphic references to Baillie.
In one, Ross shouted: “He f***** your granddaughter.” In another, Brand told Sachs: “But it was consensual, and she wasn’t menstrual. It was consensual, lovely sex. It was full of respect. I sent her a text. I’ve asked her to marry me, Andrew Sachs.”
Baillie says the call to her grandfather destroyed their relationship; she and Sachs did not speak for eight years
Sachs, celebrated for playing the hapless waiter in Fawlty Towers, held conservative views and reportedly blamed Baillie “entirely” for the humiliating incident
Baillie says Sachs was living with advanced dementia when she visited him in 2016 to apologise and try to make peace
Sachs appeared as Manuel alongside John Cleese’s Basil in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers, which made its cast household names
Baillie recalled: “Russell had a hugely popular Radio 2 show and was at the height of his fame. He became friends with Jonathan Ross, and they decided it would be funny to call my grandfather Andrew Sachs and interview him over the phone.
“His agent apparently did not pass on the message, so they reached his answering machine and left the most vile message in the world.”
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The broadcast caused widespread disbelief because the programme had been recorded in advance, yet no one on the production team had flagged the call. No senior BBC editor had listened to the programme before it aired.
Baillie said allowing the material to be broadcast reflected an extraordinary failure of judgement and had consequences that were devastating and impossible to reverse.
“No girl wants her grandparents to hear something like that, let alone the entire country,” she said. “Who wants their grandparents to know what they are doing in bed?
“It was a split second that changed the lives of everyone involved.”
After the backlash, Brand resigned, as did Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas and BBC head of compliance Dave Barber. Ross was suspended without pay for three months.
Ofcom fined the BBC £150,000, describing the broadcast as “gratuitously offensive, humiliating and demeaning”.
Baillie said the scandal contributed to her later dependence on drugs and alcohol. “They were slut-shaming,” she said of Brand and Ross.
“It was bullying directed at my grandfather. It does not matter whether I was the biggest whore in the world — it was still bullying.
“It was an inside joke between two idiots.”
She continued: “I was a very lost young woman and began saying yes to everything. I thought, ‘You already see me as a whore, so I might as well give you one.’ It made me feel that nothing I did mattered.
“Alcohol and drugs had always been part of my life, but things peaked years later. I spent years numbing myself with drink, drugs and men — anything.”
Baillie said Brand later apologised and paid for her to attend a rehabilitation centre in Staffordshire in 2018, where she stayed for six months. She relapsed into alcohol and drug use after leaving.
With support from family and friends, however, she says she is now six years sober. She works as an artist and presents a podcast about addiction.
Despite Brand’s apology, Baillie said she has struggled most with the damage Sachsgate caused to her relationship with Sachs and her grandmother, Adelaide.
Relatives said the couple, from an older generation, placed the blame for the incident entirely on Baillie.
“I did not speak to my grandparents for eight years after Sachsgate,” she said. “I tried repeatedly. I called, wrote letters and eventually decided to grieve for them while they were still alive.
“It felt deeply unfair.”
Describing her final visit to Sachs in December 2016, Baillie said: “I eventually saw my grandfather again. I do not know whether he recognised me because he was in the late stages of dementia. He was living in a beautiful residential home for retired actors.
Baillie says the phone call became a turning point in her life, followed by years of alcohol and drug addiction and a six-month stay in rehabilitation
After years of rebuilding her life, Baillie’s family believes Brand paid for her rehabilitation because he felt guilty about the role he played in her decline
“I remember it clearly. I sat opposite him, and that was the last time I saw him. He looked directly into my eyes and I looked into his. For a moment, my grandfather was there again — lucid.
“I told him, ‘I am wholeheartedly sorry for what happened and for my part in it.’ I cannot control what other people do, only my own actions. I did everything I could to put my side of the street in order. Then he died.”
She remains troubled by the possibility that Sachs may no longer have understood what she was saying.
“I choose to believe we resolved it, but with someone living with dementia, there is no real way to know, is there?” Baillie said.
She also apologised to her grandmother, who died a year later in 2017. Baillie declined to discuss the details, saying only: “I made amends to everyone.”
The Mail can also reveal that Baillie supplied a statement requested by Brand’s defence team during his trial, although it was never used.
It is understood the statement was intended as a response if witnesses discussed the Sachsgate scandal. As no one did so, it was not introduced or made public.
Baillie said she has no regrets about providing it because she simply answered questions honestly and did not seek to undermine the accounts of other women.
“They asked whether he had ever done anything to me that could be considered non-consensual,” she said. “I had to tell the truth, which was no. Then they asked more nuanced questions, such as whether I could imagine Russell behaving that way towards other women or whether he had ever been aggressive. All I have is my own experience.
“I said no because that is the truth of what happened to me.”
Although Brand has been convicted and she sympathises with his victims, Baillie said she does not regret her own relationship with him.
Looking back, she said: “We were largely seeing each other for sex. It was casual. But over the year and a half or two years, I think we did begin to like each other. I probably liked him more than he liked me.
Reflecting on her relationship with Brand, Baillie now believes he is an unwell sex addict who should spend the rest of his life making amends to his victims
“He was seeing many women, and I knew that. I never imagined I was the only one, but it did not concern me then. Sex was his drug of choice, available to him constantly. I was simply one part of that — one line among many.”
Asked what drew Brand to her, she answered candidly: “I was an attractive woman in my twenties, available and willing to have sex. That was the only qualification I needed.”
Only later did she learn that some of the other women Brand pursued had not consented in the same way.
Baillie believes Brand should now use the wealth and influence he built through his media career to support those victims, just as he once helped her.