Russell Brand had 'no compassion or insight,' says journalist who interviewed comedian in 2017

Joining me now for more is Katie Glass in our London studio. She is a feature writer and columnist for The Times newspaper and has interviewed Brand previously. Katie, appreciate you taking the time. First of all, what's your reaction to the sentence, ten and a half years? And also the judge's sentencing remarks, you know, in which he really, I think, laid bare the grotesque nature of the way Brown had behaved, his arrogance, the way he felt untouchable. And also he spoke, you know, to some of the sort of rape myths around women, this idea, you know, he said, whatever women wear, whatever they do, wherever they go, they have to consent, don't they, to sexual acts. And it just felt, I think your reporter spoke of it as a sort of watershed moment. And that is how it feels. Women I've spoken to today. Feel emotional. They feel it's a moment at which, you know, I guess a continuing of a sort of Me Too moment, but where they're going to be believed. And actually, I think men I've spoken to feel it's a change, too, that perhaps it will lead to a change of behavior. We heard from the Crown prosecutors in Anna's report. I want to play a bit more of what he said outside the court. We'll listen to it. The evidence presented in this case showed Brand to be a manipulative sexual predator. What do you make of those comments? Well, it's true, although it's interesting. I saw a journalist talking today about the idea that... You know, people have spoken about the number of women that wanted to sleep with him. In fact, on my ex-accounts, in my emails, I have arrogant men emailing me saying that all these women wanted to sleep with him. And it seems to me that Brown's interest was actually in the women who didn't want to sleep with him. You know, his interest was in doing things to women they didn't want to do. So it just feels really significant. It's a moment where I think a huge self-reflection will take place for, I think, men. It's a moment of self-reckoning. to really understand what rape is and that certain behaviours will not be tolerated. You were recalling your 2017 sit-down with Russell Brand just the other day and you said Brand was in his phase as a quote, spiritual guru and that you just didn't buy it. What did you see during that encounter that led you to believe that? Well it's interesting, so that was 2017, so long before these allegations, and it was a moment where he was doing this book, Recovery, so he was trying to rebrand himself and he had left behind his sort of comedic past in which he had been openly misogynistic and so on, and he was saying he was a sort of changed person and he was selling himself as this spiritual guru. I didn't buy it because despite his seeing himself as a victim, I mean, you know, and I'm very sympathetic to some of the things he talked to me about, and he showed me his self-harming scars, but when we talked about how his addictions had affected people, I asked if he had any regrets. He said, I have no regrets, which startled me. You know, he seemed to have a sense of the way his addictions, his drug addiction, his alcohol addiction, his sex addiction had affected him. But he showed no sort of compassion or insight into how it had affected other people. You know, sex addiction is obviously very different to other addictions in that way. I think at that point, you know, it was being sort of suggested he had slept with maybe a thousand women. You know, he was promoting a book which had the 12-step program. And steps eight and nine are about listing the people you need to make amends to and making that amends. I asked how many people were on his list, and I sort of joked it might be hundreds. He looked absolutely startled and said no, and I asked if he'd made amends to many of the women he'd slept with, and he said no. Now, to be clear, you know, the accusation at the time certainly wasn't that he had committed rape or sexual violence, but his comedy was openly... Not just sort of misogynistic even, it completely dehumanised women. The way he spoke about women and sort of the violence with which he spoke about sex acts towards them, it was horrible sort of objectification. I'm no Mary Whitehouse figure, you know, I like good humour and a joke and I enjoyed some of it. Some of Brown's work, but he took it too far the way he spoke about women was dehumanising and this idea that you could set yourself up as a sort of spiritual person. And, you know, around the same time he was leaning into left wing politics. So he was seeing himself as some sort of champion of equality. And it just seemed utterly hypocritical to me that he could see himself in those sort of terms when he just had no sense of the sort of humanity of the women. And, you know, sadly, even now, even in court, it would seem that he has expressed no sort of guilt or compassion for his victims or empathy with the way other people were affected by his behaviour. Any idea why his behaviour was tolerated for so long? I mean, that's a very complicated question, but I guess something I did want to be really honest about as well with that interview was, you know, also I found him extremely charming. I found him charismatic. You know, he was attractive. He was interesting. I think actually the most interesting conversation we can have about how sexual violence and rape and so on happen is not to try and set up men like this as monsters. You know, I've seen people do interviews about Brand and they're talking about him saying he was a monster. You know, we all knew. Well, the reality is he wasn't a monster. He was charming. He was fun to be around. He was interesting. Interesting. And actually, that is the reality, is that men who commit rape and sexual violence, they aren't monsters with horns. They don't look a certain way. You know, they can be charming. We know there can be sweet husbands who in private behave appallingly to their wives. You know, some women who have slept with Brand consensually have spoken about how although they had those encounters with him, he obviously was having different encounters with different people. So I suppose that's one way he got away with it, is because he was so charismatic. And also, you know, he was doing very charitable things. I mean, we've certainly seen that before with, let's say, Jimmy Savile, and his own QC was talking, his own KC. In his defence, was sort of bringing up the fact that he had supported people, he hadn't just behaved, I think he used terms like he hadn't just behaved like a monster. But again, I think to understand that sort of complexity. And then I think, you know, people struggled to speak up. Like women, since Me Too, we have had a reckoning. I think people are feeling braver. They feel more empowered to be able to speak about these things. But in workplaces, you know, in the industry, this idea of sort of talent being treated in a special way and put on a pedestal. It means that people felt that they couldn't speak against him. And actually, in that interview with him, you know, I was a professional journalist going to interview him for the Sunday Times. And he'd just got married two days before. And he was looking into my eyes, you know, your Malteser eyes, he said. Do you want to cuddle, he said to me. Well, you know, I don't think he would have talked to Jeremy Paxman, you know, a sort of 50-year-old male newsreader that way. And so why didn't I say something? Well, I didn't because it felt awkward and uncomfortable. I really do think this will be a watershed moment in which women feel that more serious behaviour will be taken seriously, but also, you know, things that make them feel just sort of uncomfortable in those grey areas that they'll be able to speak up about more openly. Katie, appreciate your reflections and your insight into all this. Thank you. Katie Glass of The Times of London.