Even by Russell Brand’s standards, the display was brazen. As he arrived at a comedy awards ceremony hosted by the now-defunct men’s magazine Loaded, photographers captured the comedian looking down the plunging white top worn by nurse-turned-glamour model Abi Titmuss.
The incident unfolded outside Sketch, then one of London’s most fashionable celebrity venues, where Brand was due to be named 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, usually dressed in black with his shirt open to the navel, spray-on black jeans and trademark cowboy boots. One former associate tells me he “leched at girls for fun”. I already knew the reputation.
I was there too, during the years when Brand was considered one of the most desirable guests on the media-party circuit.
He seemed to be everywhere, and so was I. As a showbusiness gossip columnist for a tabloid newspaper, I spent many nights out until dawn, alongside Brand and his circle. The difference was that I was looking for a story, not a sexual conquest.
At the time, headlines treated Brand with a kind of indulgent humour, calling him “Randy Russ” or a “Lanky Lothario”. In hindsight, those labels were not merely cheeky. They obscured behaviour that, I believe, was predatory.
Russell Brand, pictured in 2009, was regularly seen leaving London clubs with women during the Noughties
The comedian openly looked down Abi Titmuss’s low-cut white top at a 2006 awards ceremony
I remember seeing him at the 2006 NME music awards, which he hosted at Hammersmith Palais. During the ceremony, Sir Bob Geldof called Brand a “c***” on stage amid rumours that the comedian had been romantically involved with his daughter Peaches, who was not yet 17.
After the show, despite Geldof’s furious intervention, I watched in disbelief as Brand continued to flirt conspicuously with Peaches. Her age appeared not to trouble him.
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 appeared, 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 named Jordan.
David Walliams responds 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”
The relationship was brief. After Brand ended it, I was told that he had treated Jordan “foully”. One associate put it bluntly: “Girls’ feelings don’t matter to Russell.”
For the organisations that hired him — including Channel 4, where he hosted Big Brother’s Big Mouth, and BBC Radio 2, where he presented a Saturday-evening show in the mid-2000s — such conduct should have prompted serious criticism. Apparently, it did not. If anything, it seemed to enhance his appeal to employers. The Noughties were a raucous, grubby era: money was plentiful, drinks flowed freely at parties and celebrities were paid generously to attend. Women were drawn into events by the famous men on the guest lists, while cocaine use was widespread.
Brand’s wider circle included television host Jonathan Ross and comedian Noel Fielding. A journalist friend was once invited by Fielding, then best known as part of comedy duo The Mighty Boosh, to a grim basement flat in Camden. I went with her. Brand was there, all over a woman in the corner, while other guests sat in a circle taking turns snorting cocaine.
Fielding later acknowledged taking pills, magic mushrooms, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine. That night, he was unkind to my friend. He was also a regular presence at fashionable Camden venues such as The Hawley Arms and developed an unsettling friendship with Pixie Geldof, who was still at school at the time.
I once saw the pair shopping at Urban Outfitters on Kensington High Street. Fielding had a devoted following among music and celebrity publicists, who would trail him to concerts at the Kentish Town Forum and drinks at the nearby Pineapple pub. Whenever I encountered him, I was struck by his air of arrogance.
Ross was not a party fixture in quite the same way, but Brand and Fielding regarded him as a leading figure in British comedy. His recently resurfaced “joke” at the 2004 British Comedy Awards about disgraced comedian David Walliams “taking home” 15-year-olds captured the era’s attitude towards women and girls.
The television host, who was part of Brand’s circle, released a statement on Tuesday seeking to distance himself from the remark
On Tuesday, Ross issued a statement attempting to explain the comment. “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 performers had long felt uncomfortable within the industry, 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 brought a resurgence of rape jokes, as if comedians were deliberately reviving the broad misogyny of the 1970s — only with an even more vicious edge. Jimmy Carr’s 2010 tour, for example, was called Rapier Wit and featured the line: “What do nine out of ten people enjoy? Gang rape.”
A 2007 episode of Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz of the Year offered another example. Ross, Brand and Fielding appeared alongside host Carr, comedians Rob Brydon and David Mitchell, and the only woman on the panel, singer Lily Allen, who was 21 at the time.
At one stage, Ross called Brand and Fielding “two of the best-known c***smen in the business”. He then suggested swapping seats with Allen so she could sit closer to Brydon and Mitchell and “might go home with her dress still on”.
“How dare you, we’re not rapists,” Fielding declared, prompting loud laughter. 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 before saying: “He wasn’t a rapist, he was a…” Brand completed the sentence: “Serial murderer.”
Brand 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 such supposedly taboo-breaking material or risk being dismissed as prudish. In a culture already invested in judging and shaming them, it is little wonder that many felt unable to challenge the rogues, creeps and criminals. Increasingly, it appears that those men were the people with the greatest influence across British television and comedy.
A friend sent me the clip last week. After watching it, I replied simply: “Sadly, that was 2007 — stuff like that was happening everywhere.”
But why did the 2000s become so toxic for women?
The 1990s had produced an intense fascination with British culture, inspiring a generation of young women through figures such as Tracey Emin, Zoe Ball and Kate Moss, who appeared to live on their own terms. The parties were chaotic, but they looked exhilarating. By the 2000s, the mood had become more hostile. The Spice Girls’ bright version of girl power gave way to the public spectacle of Britney Spears in schoolgirl outfits and Amy Winehouse’s devastating addictions.
Big Brother created a stream of aspiring celebrities who threw themselves into the nightclub circuit and hoped to date someone famous. London’s bars and clubs were thriving. On some nights, I received six or seven invitations to star-studded events, while gossip magazines were booming. Being photographed with a celebrity inside a club — or by paparazzi on the way out — was considered a major success.
For some men, the era also encouraged the idea that women were “up for it”. Women were becoming more confident and visible in traditionally male spaces such as music and comedy, and some men appeared to regard that independence as an invitation for retaliation. As Brand told Abi Titmuss, the young women who had grown up in the 1990s were supposedly “filthy too”.
There is no doubt that male celebrities were treated as idols. Today, many are far more cautious about their conduct. In the pre-smartphone era, there were fewer cameras and far less immediate evidence. This kind of sexualised behaviour was not confined to comedy; it was embedded across television, the entertainment industry and professional football.
My sister reminded me this week of an incident at Funky Buddha, the Mayfair club where I went every Tuesday in search of stories. We were talking 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 upset and still speaks about it.
Footballers behaved similarly. 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 declined and said I could pay for my own taxi, he winked and replied: “Your loss.”
This conduct was widespread. Celebrities would ask friends whether a potential conquest was “safe” — meaning she could be trusted not to sell her story to the press. Many women did tell their stories anyway.
In the mid-2000s, few footballers appeared more frequently in the tabloid 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 venue popular with his Chelsea teammates. After I met him there, he sent me a stream of sexually explicit messages, as he did to several other women.
I also saw footballers ask friends to identify women in nightclubs and persuade them to move on to Chinawhite. The venue was frequented by figures including Calum Best, son of George Best, and former EastEnders actor Dean Gaffney. I regularly saw both men talking to glamour models and Page 3 models. They occupied the club’s “top table” with their manager, Dave Read, who maintained an extensive list of models he could introduce to them.
There were also reported incidents involving the vile sexual practice known as “roasting”. I had a narrow escape in Marbella in 2005, when a prominent Premier League player invited me to his hotel room for a drink after a pool party. Two of his friends arrived afterwards.
I ran out of the room, feeling extraordinarily fortunate to have escaped.
After Russell Brand’s downfall, the hope must be that women are safer in the entertainment industries — and that more decent men are prepared to challenge abusive behaviour when they witness it.
