Who’s your Brand?

Stay on the road and keep off the moors!

What a difference a few days makes. You see, I had been taken in. Taken in by the wide-chocolate-button-eyed, smart, focused, and intoxicating lyrical affirmation Russell Brand gifted on his Instagram reels. 

I’d never paid too much attention to him in his ‘hedonistic days’ probably viewing him as a bit gauche, irritating and attention-seeking (plus he looked as if he just needed a good wash). And of course, there were plenty of those stumbling on and off our screens back then. I was too busy keeping up with the ladette culture where promiscuity was all part of the entitlement I felt as a woman. No one was telling me what to drink or who to sleep with. I made my own decisions and f**k those who disapproved. 

I have been alcohol free for a year and a half because, you know, something’s got to give right? And part of this has meant daily check-ins, not with an AA sponsor, but with the sober influencers on social media who help affirm my sobriety by keeping me on the ‘straight n narra’!

When the news first broke about Russell Brand, I’ll admit I was bereft but not surprised. Telling my husband that it really couldn’t be underestimated how his advice on sobriety and seeking a more meaningful life, had helped me … no saved me! You see, at times when self-doubt had set in, almost as if by AI magic, he would pop up on a reel and then all would be well. And I’m imagining this was exactly his MO according to many of the accusations (who knew AI could be in cahoots!) But I had more to say …  what about redemption? What if a leopard really has changed its spots? My husband was not buying it. Before, he had pulled a cautionary face when I would quote something that resonated with me from Brand. As too my sons. Did they see something I didn’t before the allegations broke? I’m guessing they were simply thinking along the same lines as Bob Geldof.

By coincidence I had just watched the Jimmy Saville documentary and was struck by how some people had been left in such a state of understandable confusion trying to make sense of their interactions with him. It was a Stoke Mandeville patient who affected me the most: ‘I’m alive because of Jimmy Saville!’ she said with an apologetic shrug (she hadn’t been a physical victim of his). Head blown, that’s a hard circle to square, or is it?

You see, I’m just your standard middle-aged woman living in the UK. I’m not a TV runner, I’m not a model or comedian, but I realise now that these accusations go way beyond the confines of the TV studios and properties in LA or Henley-on Thames because us chicks of the 90s and noughties, were all exposed to the same stuff: The Big Breakfast (semi-clad beauties flirting on the bed with celebrities), TFI Friday, Men Behaving Badly …. And so this behaviour was normalised. So much so that when a boyfriend might have made a ‘little bit of mascara run’, we had no idea that that wasn’t ok. 

This detail is the one that really made me sit up. I had always believed that despite being a bit wild in my youth, I could say, at least, that I had always been in control … until now. Now I see with absolute clarity that we just didn’t have the points of reference to call it out and we were completely bamboozled by the Cool Britannia vibe as a backdrop and where feminism sat in that landscape.

Is it too soon to be grateful that the allegations surrounding Russell Brand have inadvertently ‘awakened’ a generation to the predatory, misogynist crap, we’ve always accepted? I’m sure many people will be differentiating between the serious allegation of rape and the other details in the Dispatches documentary and papers. When we hear his ex-assistant talk of girls calling her the day after upset that they felt used and that he hadn’t called them, we may be guilty of harbouring a feeling of sympathy but agree this is not a criminal offence. And then I’m left wondering how we became so damaged and dysfunctional that bad behaviour can only be agreed on in terms of criminality. That surely is a low benchmark for a kind respectful society.

So yes, what a difference a few days makes. Are we on the cusp of freedom from the cruel disimpassioned permissive society rammed down our throats, which preyed on young women like me who had been sold that ‘Yes’ (or not saying ‘No’), was an expression of feminism? 

You see, growing up in any town in the UK, we all knew one guy like Brand – some girls found them creepy and stayed away (I guess I thought they were just square) but others like me were drawn to them like a Blanche Du Bois to a flame and flattered by their attention no matter how brief that lasted.  We prided ourselves on getting out alive, but we were utterly naïve to the long-term consequences which inevitably, and ironically, would lead us into and caught up in the kimono sleeved arms of the self-anointed wellness gurus and addiction therapists like Brand. Making the toxic cycle complete.

I wish I had realised back then that there’s no shame in heeding the advice, “Stay on the road and keep off the moors”.