Russell Brand’s Jail Joke Resurfaces After Prison Sentence

Brand was recalling encounters with police when he described being left in cells. TMZ reported that he appeared to be referring to his 2012 arrest in New Orleans, where he was accused of grabbing a photographer’s phone. “Sometimes they would leave me in police cells for a while, I didn’t like that very much,” he said, adding that it was “tiresome” and “lonely.”

He told Lohan that being arrested in the United States was “worse” than in the United Kingdom. Lohan responded: “I was actually in solitary confinement for 14 days.” She said she could leave her cell for one hour a day and was not allowed outside. TMZ described her as appearing uncomfortable during the exchange.

Brand was sentenced at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Monday, November 9, after a jury convicted him of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. The offenses involved four women and took place between 2004 and 2009. Brand denied the charges. Justice Joel Bennathan imposed nine years for rape, with the sentences for the sexual assaults bringing the total term to 10 years and six months. The Metropolitan Police said Brand will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.

The court heard impact statements from all four women. One said she struggled to sleep and eat after being raped in 2009 and feared she had contracted HIV. Another said seeing Brand in the media made her feel “physically sick.” Senior Crown Prosecutor David Roberts said the women did not know one another and had carried the effects of what happened for nearly two decades.

Brand’s defense barrister cited his work with rehabilitation charities and described him as “a fundamentally different person today.” Bennathan called him a “sexual predator” and criticized his “staggering arrogance.” The judge said the choices two women made before the attacks—including going to a party and having a few drinks, or going to Brand’s home for consensual sex of a particular kind—did not reduce his responsibility. “Whatever women wear, wherever they go, indeed whatever they drink, they retain the right to say no,” he said.