“Comedian” and conspiracy theorist Russell Brand has been accused of rape and abuse by multiple women, according to an extensively reported story in the Times (UK).
Somehow this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
Here’s a summary of the charges as reported in the story:
The comedian and actor Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse during a seven-year period at the height of his fame.
Four women have alleged sexual assaults between 2006 and 2013, while he was a presenter for BBC Radio 2 and Channel 4 and then an actor in Hollywood films. Others have made a range of accusations about Brand’s controlling, abusive and predatory behaviour.
Brand denied the allegations and said his relationships have all been consensual.
The findings come from a joint investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches.
Some of the details:
One woman alleges that Brand raped her against a wall in his Los Angeles home. She was treated at a rape crisis centre on the same day, according to medical records. Text messages show that in the hours after leaving his house, she told Brand that she had been scared by him and felt taken advantage of, adding: “When a girl say[s] NO it means no.” Brand replied saying he was “very sorry”.
A second woman alleges that Brand assaulted her when he was 31 and she was 16 and still at school. She said he referred to her as “the child” during an emotionally abusive and controlling relationship that lasted for about three months, and that Brand once “forced his penis down her throat”, making her choke. She says she tried to push him off and said she had to punch him in the stomach to make him stop.
A third woman claims that he sexually assaulted her while she worked with him in Los Angeles, and that he threatened to take legal action if she told anyone else about her allegation.
The fourth described being sexually assaulted by Brand and him being physically and emotionally abusive towards her.
The story paints a picture of an absolute monster of a sexual predator, sordid detail after sordid detail.
So here’s an open thread to discuss these allegations (or whatever else you want to talk about).
@Surplus
The last time it was WordPress that took down the blog because of a malicious DMCA complaint, not Cloudflare blocking access. I’d wager it’s the same this time.
@Surplus… @Ada is correct. The problem isn’t Cloudflare. It is accurately reporting that our site is down.
The reason it is down is that our hosting service has deliberately taken us down.
Why? As Ada says: it’s a malicious DMCA complaint. There’s a scammer in India that copies logos of various websites and companies to his own website, then reports the original as an unauthorized copy of **his** IP.
This is, of course, bullshit. The last time he did this to us the particular logo in question included our URL and the WaybackMachine shows that we were using it years ago while it’s brand new to his website. And how would he own a graphic that includes our URL? It doesn’t make the scarcest bit of sense on the surface. (Of course there are complicated ways it could make sense — a graphic designer who was never paid for their work so still owns the logo that they designed, etc., but making it make sense requires an explanation, whereas the obvious explanation, that they are a scamming holding websites for ransom, makes perfect sense right away AND after deeper inspection.)
I don’t know when this scammer is going to get listed as a scammer with our hosting service, but when we beat the first DMCA scam we provided evidence that it was, in fact, a knowing and malicious scam — not a good faith disagreement over IP ownership. Presumably there’s only so many times they can get away with this, but I’m betting that if it’s happened twice then it’s going to happen a third time before our host decides that’s enough to make it a pattern and flag this.
@ drip dyke
Ugh, that must be so frustrating.
The next Trident update should incorporate an IP Address homing feature.
@Alan: You can see what they’re sitting on anyway. Perhaps a very small, dim spot on them? Just for Capybarrister’s robe.
@FM Ox: Thanks!
For those interested in legal stuff in the UK, which includes but is not limited to @Alan:
https://medievalmurdermap.co.uk/
I do love maps.