RUSSELL BRAND finally spoke out on Friday night for the first time since the claims against him of rape and sexual assault were made public.
It was within hours of a woman claiming he had ripped holes in her tights in a taxi and refused to call her a cab home after consensual sex unless she performed oral sex on him.
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She is the eighth woman to speak out about alleged incidents during the height of his fame.
He says all his sexual relationships have been consensual.
But that doesn’t stop him being an arrogant misogynist who clearly only cares about himself.
On Friday Russell rambled on about being the victim of a conspiracy and called the allegations against him “extraordinary and distressing”.
For him that is, nobody else.
He has made a career out of crossing boundaries of good manners, taste and decency.
I only met him once, at West Ham United — and it was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
At the time, when he was invited as a fan to come to the boardroom as a guest, I could never have imagined that he could have been accused of what he has been now.
I’d always thought he played the “charming, lovable rogue” but the reality when I met him was slightly odd.
Firstly, he chose to ignore the required dress code of suit and tie, as though the rules didn’t apply to him.
If it were that alone, it could have been put down to an unfortunate faux pas.
But he also brought in an entourage of people who weren’t invited and who didn’t have tickets, as though it was his right to do as he pleased.
Put a cup down his trousers
If his bad manners and sense of entitlement wasn’t bad enough, his behaviour was downright obnoxious.
He marched straight up to me, stood right in my face and asked me: “What is the meaning of life?”
I curtly told him it was too early in the morning, as we had a 12 o’clock kick-off.
Frankly, I was too busy to answer.
And what an odd way to start a conversation.
Then he picked up a West Ham cup and saucer from the boardroom, put them down his trousers and left.
And he was supposed to be a big fan of our club.
I found Russell oddly intense — and not in a good way.
So we never invited him back.
Just like his Friday rant, he has always been obsessed with conspiracy theories, ie blaming someone else.
In 2008, on The Russell Brand Show, he and Jonathan Ross left lewd messages on Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs’s answerphone.
The incident sparked outrage, with Brand losing his flagship BBC Radio 2 show.
While he apologised at the time, he later said Sachsgate was a “dishonest scandal” and it had erupted because he had become caught up in an anti-BBC “agenda”.
Once again only thinking of himself.
The new allegations are shocking, distressing and heartbreaking for the women involved and I suspect sooner or later he will be questioned by the police.
There is no doubt that Russell Brand is certainly guilty over the years of not treating women with the respect they deserve.
Judging by Friday night’s performance, his attitude towards women is never going to change, because Brand only cares about one person — and that is himself.
Christina has a fashion fail
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THE audience at London Fashion Week was a sight to behold.
The front row at every show has always been a must-have part of the drama, and Fendi played a blinder with Linda Evangelista, Naomi Watts, Gwendoline Christie, Christina Ricci, Amber Valletta, Demi Moore, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Nikolai von Bismarck all their to show their support.
Beauty, style, elegance and a look of pure class from each of them.
Well, apart from actress Christina, who whipped out her iPhone as the models came down the catwalk and bunged the snap on her Instagram.
Surely not the time or the place.
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THE received wisdom is you can’t be too rich or two thin.
But even Sharon Osbourne has admitted the latter is not true, saying that she “didn’t want to go this thin” on TalkTV’s Piers Morgan Uncensored show.
Sharon who was once nearly 17st, now weighs about 7st.
In June she revealed she had lost more than 30lb using the so-called weight-loss drug Ozempic which, in many ways, sounds too good to be true.
And given that she also said she felt nauseous every day, it sounds like it probably is.
On balance, I think I’d rather be a bit heavier without the nausea or the “Ozempic face”, thanks very much.
Kylie’s still a winner
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A LOT of pop singers lose their way, stop making music or go off the boil.
But the fabulous Kylie Minogue, who is surely the queen of the kitchen disco, has just released another album, Tension.
It includes the song Padam Padam, which turned into a TikTok sensation and gave Kylie her first solo Top Ten single since 2010.
I guess that must mean she appeals to youngsters as well as us oldies who remember Kylie from her Neighbours days.
This is despite the fact that youth-oriented radio stations were unwilling to champion a 55-year-old woman by playing her single.
But she seems to be having the last laugh nonetheless.
Still got it, Kylie!
A WOMAN has been fined £400 for fly-tipping after she left a bag of clothes and bedding next to a supermarket recycling bank.
I’m sorry, but that is just ridiculous.
Amy-Louise May, from Boston, Lincs, says she visited her local Asda to drop off a bag of items at the store’s charity recycling banks but says both were full.
So she left the bag next to them instead for it to be collected.
As a result, she was fined for fly tipping which just seems mad to me.
Surely Boston Borough Council has better things to do with its time?
Where’s the common sense?
Trips taking mickey
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CHILDREN lost a lot of schooling during the pandemic.
So you would think that parents would be rushing there each morning, desperate for their kids to catch up on every single second of education and interaction.
And after months of gruelling home schooling, those parents would be desperate to hand them over to the professionals who actually know how to teach.
But a shocking new survey shows that parents no longer believe in 100 per cent attendance at school.
They’d prefer to take them on holiday during term time instead, with 22 per cent of pupils in England “persistently absent” – missing at least ten per cent of school sessions.
They blame teacher strikes and the pandemic for a “seismic shift” in attitudes.
Surely the one lesson parents should teach their kids is that there is nothing more important than education.
But one mum of two primary age children, from Manchester, said: “After Covid, my take on attendance and absence now is I don’t really care any more.
“Life’s too short.”
The time that children are actually in education is very short – but essential.
It’s the start of life.
It teaches children how to manage their time and the importance of turning up each day.
It instils discipline and inspires children to do their best.
This in turn informs children’s lives beyond school and into the world of work.
By letting them dodge school whenever they fancy, their parents are teaching them that none of these things are actually important.
Instead they are teaching them that Mickey Mouse in Disneyland is a perfect substitute.
If parents don’t teach their kids to play by the rules and be resilient, what is the hope for the future?
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WHEN singer Joe Jonas and actress Sophie Turner, pictured, first announced their divorce, it seemed to be as amicable as Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s “conscious uncoupling”.
They declared: “After four wonderful years of marriage we have mutually decided to amicably end our marriage.”
But this week it took a decidedly different turn when 27-year-old Sophie sued Joe, 34, to try to move their daughters, aged one and three, back to the UK.
She accused him of refusing to let them travel, leading him to issue a sensational rebuttal, claiming he is seeking “shared parenting”.
I have to ask myself how things got so messy?
For the sake of their daughters I hope they can quickly sort it out.