Once the headlines around Russell Brand have faded, women should no longer be told to shut up - Jayne Dowle

I have been shocked to see on all forms of social media people I know and consider friends defending Brand as a free-thinker and libertarian who should not be silenced by what is now called the ‘legacy media’ – in other words, established, intelligent newspapers and broadcasters.

You know, the kind of people who spend four years of their lives watching and re-watching hours of tedious and expletive-laden YouTube broadcasts, listening and transcribing inflammatory radio shows, trawling through tomes with risible titles such as My Booky Wook (Brand’s 2007 memoir), and painstakingly interviewing scores of individuals, all the time with the libel lawyer in mind.

Professional journalists in other words. They do have a role, despite what naysayers and ‘influencers’ might believe, and cutting through the nonsense has never been as important. Elon Musk, the CEO of X (formerly Twitter), says - in reference to Brand’s reported 6.6m YouTube followers (until Google pulled the plug citing his ‘off-platform’ behaviour) - that the mainstream media “don’t like competition”.

I’d argue in response that the ‘mainstream media’ have been dealing with competition since way before Musk was born, and the busting of hyperbole has been media stock-in-trade since Samuel Pepys kept a diary.

When the Covid pandemic struck almost three years ago, I rapidly grew very weary of the keyboard warriors who posted on Facebook unfounded and ignorant comments about how ‘the media’ was making it all up.

Some of these people are not even informed enough to call themselves conspiracy theorists, and yet they are entirely convinced by any dubious claim – or anti-establishment figure, in the case of Brand - that plays into common fantasies usually centred on a secretive cabal which is running the world and hoodwinking us all.

The Times-Sunday Times and Dispatches reported allegations that Brand had raped a woman in his LA home, attacked two others and groomed a 16-year-old girl between 2006 and 2013 at the height of his fame.

When the headlines following this long-term investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against the anti-establishment ‘personality’ have faded, let this grubby, sordid mess be laid down as a marker in the sand.

For two reasons; that victims of any kind of power-play (this should include bullying in the workplace, and, as various ex-Cabinet ministers are well aware, being forced to cover up wrongdoing in public office) should feel supported and emboldened to speak up, because there is always someone to listen, and that for decades too long now, women in particular have been told to put up and shut up.

Whilst no criminal charges have as yet been brought by the women who have shared their experiences at the hands of Brand with reporters, the alleged story of a famous man reportedly abusing his power is so disturbing, it should surely make us throw up our collective hands in horror.

Brand is by no means the only man in the media to capitalise on his position and use charismatic clout and financial means to reportedly seduce those who fall under his thrall.

Still, in the interests of free speech and democracy individuals such as Brand have been allowed to run riot.

By the time Brand came to be famous, it was the early 2000s, and I was far too old and jaded to be remotely impressed by his puerile attempts at entertainment, even though at 48, he’s only seven years younger than me.

What, however, if I’d been an impressionable young person, a girl who thought that because he did it and said it, it was okay for all men and boys to be rude and dismissive of women and girls?

Or a young man, perhaps already emboldened by easily-available pornography, who thought that if a famous, well-connected bloke who had famously bedded popstars could get away with it, maybe he could too?

Before you defend Brand, or excuse away his peccadilloes, consider that.