Talk:Russell Brand

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Birth date discrepancy

Note that, per the police report, Brand's birth date is 4 February 1975, not 4 June 1975. NPR specifically states "Brand is 50 years old, according to police, citing records that list Feb. 4, 1975, as the actor and comedian's birthday. That clashes with media outlets that have long reported a June 4 birthday for Brand, which would make him 49". This may need to be addressed in the article; in cases such as this generally both dates, with the corresponding sources, are included (sometimes with an explanatory footnote).-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 19:59, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Police updated their press release today. 4 June is correct. Johndavies837 (talk) 10:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes things just work themselves out; thanks for confirming.-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 23:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Missing details and accounts

Despite its length, the sexual misconduct allegations section lacks almost any detail from the comprehensive Times report, including the women's accounts. I think it's more important to include these than instances when he made inappropriate jokes to female TV presenters.

There's also no mention of the corroborating accounts from people close to the women or who worked with Brand, supporting documentation from the investigation, such as the text messages between Brand and the woman pseudonymised as "Nadia" (the phone number he used to send the messages was verified by multiple sources) and the letter she wrote him.

Nadia's friend, who took her to the Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center the same day as the assault, provided The Times with medical records. She had therapy there for the following five months during which records show she contemplated criminal/civil proceedings.

"Alice", who Brand apparently referred to as "the child", also had a family member corroborate her account of being groomed by him to The Sunday Times.

He threatened the women with legal action, yet he hasn't pursued libel charges against News UK despite stringent UK laws that would favor him if the accusations were unfounded (laid out here). Here, The Times journalists explain the foolproof measures they had to take before publishing the report. GhulamIslam (talk) 03:14, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article is flagged as a contentious topic. I would be extremely careful about using the talk page as a forum to introduce contentious material as wikipedia is not a news source. WP:NOTNEWS Slacker13 (talk) 17:06, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Times article is the most relevant high-quality reliable source to this subject; it should not be contentious to inform the reader by describing its contents with a WP:NPOV using in-text attribution to The Times. Neutrality is not about omitting or dismissing central aspects of coverage as "contentious"; it is about accurately and completely reflecting it in the best available sources, which in this case is The Times. GhulamIslam (talk) 01:21, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not arguing the validity of the news source. Simply that: "Information should not be included solely because it is true or useful. An article should not be a complete presentation of all possible details." WP:NOTEVERYTHING

Because this is a BLP we need to be extremely careful -- even in the talk page. The talk page shouldn't be used to WP:SOAPBOX potentially libelous material.

The user who posted and then responded to this thread is no longer active after less than 24 hours of responding to my comment which makes me believe it was a sockpuppet account. Slacker13 (talk) 04:31, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fluff and bloat

Brand talks a lot, does a lot of interviews, and posts a lot online. Not all of it is relevant. A good chunk of this page is cited to tabloids, Brand's own writings and interviews, other people's op-eds, youtube, his twitter postings, etc. It's a lot of fluff and detracts from the most relevant and pertinent information. He's been a popular target in tabloids as well, and these are low quality sources to avoid. So I've taken to trimming a lot of it, but it's so pervasive much of the article needs a re-write from the ground up. Harizotoh9 (talk) 06:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It still has things like "rave reviews for his performance as Snow". It's not just what he's said but what he's done that gets that sort of treatment. The only thing I would say is the various "incidents" and statements do shine a light on his "style" and approach. But rather than have an incident-by-incident account using a WP:PRIMARY news reports it would be valid to talk about themes with brief details of fewer incidents as examples. That would require relying on more "profile" type media reports as sources (rather than editors WP:ORing the incidents into themes themselves) and moving the sourcing onto a more WP:SECONDARY basis. As you say that's a big re-write. DeCausa (talk) 10:57, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some trimming, but there's still 6 sources cited to Brand alone, including his Trews show. Harizotoh9 (talk) 12:08, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"...and promoted conspiracy theories regarding them." (lede)

I feel as though this clause is not appropriate for the lede, as it is not really a central aspect of the allegations; thus the choice to highlight it comes off as hostile. I would be fine integrating it into the "allegations" section itself, but not as part of the lede overview. 98.2.193.13 (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's notable as part of his response to the allegations, he denied them AND suggested that they were part of a collaborative plot by the government and mainstream media to try to censor him.

I also think that it should be expanded upon in the Reactions and aftermath subsection. GhulamIslam (talk) 22:06, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong month?

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The paragraph starting with "On 7 May 2025, news outlets reported Brand to be the subject" surely should be 7 April, right? I can not edit myself, hence the edit request. SammieMorse (talk) 15:09, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done Corrected the month. Day Creature (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2025

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Please remove the unfounded claim that Russel Brand “promoted conspiracy theories” regarding allegations made against him. This claim does not correspond with the three referenced articles (8, 9 & 10) that follow at the end of the sentence, and it appears to have been written or edited by someone with bias. Wikipedia is not supposed to reflect bias. See below for excerpt:

“Later, another allegation was made to the Metropolitan Police of a sexual assault in 2003.[6] Brand has denied all of the allegations[7] and promoted conspiracy theories regarding them.[8][9][10]”

The line can simply say “Brand has denied all of the allegations”.

Thank you. 46.29.25.46 (talk) 19:48, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The claim is verified by the sources given, i.e. citations 8, 9, and 10. The sources are considered reliable by Wikipedia. If you have another policy-based argument, ensure you reviewed your details properly. Yue🌙 17:48, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting police and legal actions section

There is a case for splitting this into separate sections for criminal and civil cases, for clarity; there is a lot of material already and there will be much more. Jontel (talk) 17:11, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]