Emily Maitlis looks back at 'chilling' 2017 interview with Russell Brand | The News Agents

So what you have here is a picture emerging of a pattern of behaviour. It wasn't one woman and one rape, although frankly that would have been enough. It would easily have been enough if he had been convicted of that. But it is a pattern that is emerging here of various women. Who have finally been able to come forward and talk about what happened to them. And I think it's important to understand this element of what the Met is now telling us. That Russell Brand used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women. As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement. And I have to say, I remember at Newsnight interviewing Russell Brand. And he was, as you say, John, He was a superstar. He was somebody who could command a crowd, who could flirt with a crowd. He was adored by the media. He was given jobs at the BBC. He was given jobs at Channel 4. And there was, to some extent, I think, a wall of silence around... What anyone felt they were able to say because of who he was and because of how popular and how powerful he became. At one point, he wrote this sort of self-help book and it was all about his sort of road to recovery and how he'd come to understand himself and how he found himself. Now he was married and he had a baby daughter. And I remember saying to him, this was on Newsnight, I wonder what you'd think if your own daughter When you look back at that promiscuous lifestyle, do you think, does that appall you? Do you think, God, I was disgusting? Do you look at your daughter now and think, I hope she never meets Russell Brown when she grows up? Emily, don't get so worked up about it. It's only a rhetorical device. Does it appall you? No, my dear. I don't look back at the past and get all worked up about it like Ebenezer Scrooge. I simply think those are some things I've done. I've amended for them. And as for the likelihood of some sort of... Faustian kick up the arse from future, Russell. If my daughter meets somebody who's caring and sensitive and knows how to communicate, then I think that will be a good thing. It is pretty chilling to listen back to that now. It is a story of sexual abuse. We have now heard so many times of, frankly, men who have become so powerful and so entitled that no one dares speak out against them.