Russell Brand is admitting to having sex with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30, as it was still the age of consent in the United Kingdom.
The now 50-year-old comedian and actor made an appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show to address the various allegations against him, including accusations of rape and sexual assault.
“The plain fact of it is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom, where I’m from, the age of consent is 16,” he said.
“And I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30. But when I was 30, I was a very different person. I was a lot younger, and I was an immature 30-year-old,” he explained.
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“When there is a strong power differential, as there is when you’re a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I did at that time, I think involves exploitation. I think it is exploitative. I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish, and I did not apply enough consideration—barely any, I suppose really—to how that sex was affecting other people,” he continued.
“What fame gave me and what my addiction fueled was opportunity for endless consent, which led me to be a hedonist and a fool, and an exploiter of women, and that is wrong. And that is something that needs to be redeemed and addressed and atoned for,” Russell said.
“What I’m obviously not only querying, but violently or aggressively or assertively opposing, is the idea that this is a judicial criminal matter where consent was overridden. Actually what happened was is consent was directed. That’s what being famous and being, if I may say, forgive me, charismatic affords you is the ability to direct consent. That doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s actually not right. It’s wrong. It’s a sin. It’s an expression of selfishness and false idolatry,” he went on.
“I provided a lot of material through my foolishness and my selfishness around women. That meant that when I became not a person that was celebrated by the culture as a representative of individualism, hedonism, you’re the most important thing in the world, essentially acting like if there is a god, you’re it. That’s what the culture wants you to believe. It doesn’t want you to have a higher authority to which you submit…we don’t actually. We’re not the final say on what’s right and wrong. God is the final say,” he added.
He currently faces accusations made by six women between 1999 and 2009, including seven charges: three counts of rape, three charges of sexual assault, and one allegation of indecent assault.
Russell Brand is also currently promoting his upcoming book, How to Become a Christian in 7 Days, described as a “testimony and guide to a timeless, yet zeitgeist-capturing, grounded, yet psychedelic encounter with Christ.”