Bulwark Takes - MAGA Hero Russell Brand Faces Disgusting New Charges

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

JVL and Will Sommer share their takes on new charges against Russell Brand, including multiple counts of sexual assault in the UK. They discuss how Brand’s shift from entertainer to spiritual conservative figure fits a broader pattern of public figures seeking refuge in right-wing circles amid scandal and question the sincerity of such transformations. What’s behind MAGA’s readiness to defend accused predators, and why does Brand’s “faith” look suspiciously convenient?

Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hello, everyone. I'm JVL here with the Bulwarks, Will Sommer. We have news that Russell Brand has been charged with four counts of sexual assault, two of which are alleged rapes in Great Britain. These are not recent. These are dating back several years pursuant to an investigation that began in the media. Russell Brand says that he's innocent.

He looks forward to defending himself in court. It's another one of these very strange journeys of somebody who begins in the entertainment world, gets themselves sort of piped into red-pilled world or heterodox world and then Christian world. And then along the way, it turns out there's a bunch of stuff, allegations, all allegations, Will. And I want to talk about that before we start, though. I do want to say that Russell Brand, when he was a comedian, was unbelievably funny. Forgetting his role in Forget forgetting Sarah Marshall is amazing. But he is also responsible, Will, for the single funniest moment in the history of cable news when he was on Morning Joe and was being interviewed by Mika Brzezinski.

And she gets up to fix the table that he's sitting at because he's jiggered with it by putting his legs up on it. And she bends over and is displaying some décolletage i believe it's the french call it and russell brand does this thing where he goes careful love i'm only flesh and blood here's that clip from 11 years ago i think we could

go back in so there you go love be careful because that's a low- dress. Sorry. Okay. I'm only flesh and blood. I've got instincts. Oh, okay. Tell me what you need to know. All right. So I'm not wrong, right? That is unbelievably funny. And he does redeem, in fact, the whole of cable news just with that one bit. Yeah.

I mean, like, obviously, you can be a witty guy. Yeah, certainly. one bit yeah i mean like obviously you can be a witty guy um yeah certainly it's a i think the russell brand we look at in 2025 as this figure who as you said is sort of a mainstream entertainment figure uh who then as these allegations against him mounted particularly in 2023 after this documentary came out then i think a very well-trod path for for disgraced entertainers or people who are facing disgrace to then become a right winger. And in this case, Russell Brand became an evangelical Christian. He got baptized, all this stuff, and then became a hardcore Trump guy. And a Catholic too, right? He then became a Catholic. And I mean, his Christian journey, again, I don't judge what's in the hearts of men. That's up to God to decide, Will.

But it seems to be, as my Protestant friends might say, a little bit syncretic, syncretic, syncretic, where he's he's still into a lot of universalism and tarot cards and Kabbalah and like, he's into a lot of stuff that doesn't, it, it fits more with the spiritual Christian than, like, religious Christian sort of stuff. Well, it's funny you say he's a Catholic, because, you know, a few months ago, he was, he was dunking someone in a river in his tighty-whities, you know, people might have seen this, which is, like, not exactly like, when things of other kind of Christian denominations with that kind of like big dunk in a river. You know, he was selling like an amulet that had special powers. He had a whole video about that. And so I agree.

I mean, I think it's as with so many things with him, it's kind of a unique, unique style all his own. So can you explain to me what it is about, what it is about conservative culture that makes becoming a Trumper sort of armor? Because this is a thing we've said. So like Eric Adams has armor now, right? You know, if you've been caught doing a bad thing, like, you know, the Tates, you just decide you're going to get on side with MAGA and then you're armored up. Everybody will believe that all the things against you are fake. And I noticed this with Russell Brand because he became he had some sort of relationship

with the app Halo, which is like the Catholic version of calm. And it's like a meditation app. And Russell Brand was, and I remember saying to some Catholic friends, what, Russell Brand is on board with these? That doesn't make sense. Like this guy has a bunch of allegations against him. And my Catholic friends were like,

no, no, no, no, none of those things are true. That's all fake news. I was like, well, maybe. But how do you know? Like, what do you just like, no, none of those things are true. That's all fake news. I was like, well, maybe. But how do you know? Like, what do you just like all of a sudden he's on side and so he's presumed innocent. How does that work? Yeah, I mean, I think there's two things. I think for decades, conservatives, because they are they see themselves less represented in the broader mainstream culture and entertainment, that when someone does flip to their side, I think they're much more willing to tolerate, you know, either maybe someone's not actually so talented, perhaps,

or in this case, that they're facing some kind of scandal, they're more willing to tolerate that, because I mean, frankly, there's less competition, you know, on the right to be the funny comedian. And then I think in the case of the Trump movement, specifically, I mean, these are people who, like, you're not supporting Donald Trump, if you don't think it's very common to have false sexual assault allegations, because that's obviously what he has faced. And, you know, more broadly, I think there's also just sort of a history of these people have been in your for nearly a decade to thinking that, like, whenever someone is prosecuted for something or pursued by an investigation that that it's probably a witch hunt and so you know we can see uh russell brand already has responded to this and said you know this is the government of care starmers out to get me all this stuff and you might say i think if he wasn't a trump associate person like well why would they care that much you know why would the government cook up this whole i think the

prime minister of the uk cares about this comedian but but he can say much as Andrew Tate has someone that Russell Brand is praised. He can say, you know, I'm just telling these brave truths and that's why they're cooking up these charges against me. There's a weird relationship between the right and like the idea of sexual assault here because, and this really does like the Andrewrew tate versus russell brand thing creates a problem for them because like the andrew tate view of the world seems to be like fuck yeah you should rape women like that's what real men do but that isn't really compatible with a legal defense and so there's there's this dissonance there right between? Between like, no, no, it was all perfectly consensual as if like it needs to be perfectly consensual. But at the same time, like Andrew Tate really understands

how gender relations should be, you know? Like it's, like, how do they resolve? Like at some point, do they just finally be like, yes, you know what? The truth is we don't believe in consent. Well, you know- Does that come or no? Well, it's funny you say that.

I mean, certainly I think something we've seen over and over on the right is these people who speak about women so dismissively or, you know, Andrew Tate's extreme of sort of like you need to almost enslave women to be your cam girl prisoners that you, you know, make all this money off of and exploit. And then when actual when he faces actual criminal charges, he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, like all these things I laid out on video, that's, you thought that was real? And so, I mean, similarly, like, you know, this idea that, you know, women should be, you know, should be forced to be in the home or all this stuff. And then often I've seen, and not always in ways that are reportable, that these ideas play out, you know, in these people's personal lives, which shouldn't be a surprise. Yet sometimes it is a surprise even to me that how it's like, oh, no, this guy, you know, they speak about treating women so poorly. And then sometimes, you know, often in their personal lives, they do.

Yeah. The guerrilla mindset guy, Cernovich, do you remember the New Yorker profile of him? Yes. So like Mike Cernovich, you're right, you know, the guerrilla mindset about being a Pua and a player and then like it turns out he's divorced and his ex-wife supports him because she's a successful big firm lawyer. And then he remarried this other lady and lived in a little like gated suburban housing development with her. And I think like her parents lived next door to them or something. They had a daughter and the New Yorker reporter shows up to you know this big profile within and his new wife is just like oh all that stuff he says that's not real like you know he's such a good girl dad and he's like uh uh uh like it's yeah I mean his thing was it was his original thing was like danger and play

you know very like like this is like this playboy who's out, you know, this adrenaline junkie. And then it turns out he's like living off his ex-wife's alimony. Yeah, it's it's an astonishing, astonishing thing. But it works is the other thing. And that's what I don't like, I guess. I mean, they understand their marks, right? Yeah, I mean, certainly. I mean, I think in the case of, you know, Andrew Tate, for example, I mean, this is their marks, right? Yeah, I mean, certainly. I mean, I think in the case of, you know, Andrew Tate, for example, I mean, this is a guy who is appealing, I think, to, you know, extremely lost young men who have like nothing going on. And he's saying, you know, the way, you know, he was selling tickets to Tate University, what a place to attend.

And, you know, he would, you know, basically say how this is how to imprison women or, you know, to entrap women as your cam girls. In the case of Russell Brand, I mean, this, I think his pivot has been like almost comically cynical, even by the standards of this crew, where, you know, within, you know, it's been less than two years since he's faced these allegations in a really serious format. And yet he has gone from suddenly, oh, you know, I'm a Christian now and all that crazy stuff. It was all consensual, but, you know, I left my crazy lifestyle behind. And now, you know, but I'm a good guy. And, you know, let me just sell you all this stuff about Christianity. And so I think it, but, you know, it's successful. I mean, he has a daily show on Rumble, which is kind of like right wing YouTube. And he's sort of joined that pantheon pretty quickly. Yeah, it reminds me of Milo. Milo did this, too.

And I don't know if you remember. I mean, who can even say which incarnation of him this was. But there was an incarnation of him where he was doing like Catholic cable shopping network. But it was it was like streaming. And I just remember a video clip of him sitting like crossing himself while trying to sell a statue of the Virgin Mother. Yes, you know, this is my favorite book of the saints.

And yeah, I mean, it was very, these characters, these people cycle through where this is a guy who a few years ago was like riling up the gamers for Gamergate and kind of this like, almost like whatever password, like the Gamergate and kind of this like almost like whatever password like the Gamergate rock star and wearing like leopard print jackets or whatever. And then suddenly he's up there with a nun or something. Yeah.

You know, this is the great holy water you got to get. You know, and it's funny that, you know, I was trying to think about is there a liberal analog to this? And the thing which immediately jumped to mind was Harvey Weinstein, where when the legal walls were closing in on him, he did this turn where he was like, I'm going to spend the rest of my days fighting for gun reform.

Do you remember that? He's like, I will be a crusader against the Second Amendment, which was basically like, liberals love me. Please protect me from the law. And he got nowhere. I don't know that there's a lot of that happening. I mean, there is a lot of like rally around the flag type stuff that we saw.

Like that was the Clinton impeachment and the attacks on Monica Lewinsky is like, oh, she's lying. And Bill Clinton never did that, et cetera, et cetera. Like that. It's not to say that that that stuff exists, but the cynical like I'm going to become a cultural figure to the left that they'll protect me. I don't think that the left has that. Yeah. I mean, nothing springs to mind immediately. unique thing among Trump supporters where they have just been taught and encouraged by like a huge right-wing media apparatus and the president to just, if there's something that's politically

inconvenient, just to ignore it in terms of a prosecution or a scandal and to believe that, you know, as Andrew Tate speaks, he says, you know, the matrix is out to get me, that there's sort of these shadowy forces and we're not going to clarify them too much. But then whenever, you know, let's say, I mean, just recently, Andrew Tate's girlfriend accused him of abusing her in L.A. The you know, just oh, that's that's the matrix once again. And, you know, once you convince the audience that that's a real thing, then you can kind of get away with anything. Yeah. Yeah. And I you know, all this stuff makes me slightly uncomfortable because, you know, like the Catholic Church is the church of like conversions and stuff. Like it's, you know, Paul on the road to Damascus, Augustine, like these are conversion is a conversion of bad people, especially is a deeply important part of Catholicism. And so you don't really want to

be in the business of saying this conversion looks sincere and this other conversion over here looks insincere, but it kind of looks insincere, right? I mean, I don't like, again, I don't want to, don't want to judge what's in another man's heart, but it is a little hard to, I think this one, this one is like kind of pretty high on the insincere scale, I think, you know, especially when you do it kind of like with the charges pending or under investigation. And then suddenly, you know, he's hanging out with RFK Jr. I mean, it's both sort of a political and a religious conversion all at once. Yeah. And I would say one of the key aspects to conversion

throughout the Catholic Church's history has been owning the things you did when you were a sinner. Right. And these conversions seem mostly to be I'm converting. But don't worry, everything I did before now is on the up and up, too. Yes. Yes. Well, well, it's kind of like i was a naughty boy perhaps or i i i catted around uh i mean you know he put he put out this video today shortly after the charges came out saying you know i was i think he said like i was an idiot or something along those lines but everything was consensual yeah well and maybe it was these are all just unproven allegations in a court of law, and we will see what happens. And until then, we'll wait for the next person to make their way

down the pipeline with Donald Trump and Roger Stone and Milo and Russell Brand and all these these guys with very questionable histories who somehow wind up as just sincere Jesus loving Christians. It just keeps happening. Isn't that funny? You know, what a coincidence. Good luck, America.