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British screenwriter, film producer, and former journalist Jemima Goldsmith has accused comedian and presenter Russell Brand of “coercive control and abuse” during their relationship, following his sentencing for rape and sexual assault.
A jury in London found Brand guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. He was sentenced Monday to 10 years and six months in prison.
Goldsmith, the ex-wife of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, made the accusation in a widely shared post on X. She said she dated Brand for about a year in 2014 and had to call the police to have him removed from her house during a violent incident that year. She did not press charges.
Goldsmith said she chose not to press charges or go public because she was worried about the effect of press attention on her children, who were teenagers at the time.
She said she has neither seen nor spoken to Brand since 2014. She acknowledged that her experience was less severe than that of the women who testified in court but described the period as “a difficult period in my life which has had a lasting impact.”
She said she helped journalists seeking to expose Brand’s behavior and was willing to testify in court about his abusiveness if the newspapers were sued.
Goldsmith added that she has spent much of her career supporting women she described as unfairly demonized and silenced.
Her post also addressed recent reports about Szilvia Berki, who reportedly received an injunction from Brand and Goldsmith in October 2015 banning her from harassing them. Berki had also accused Brand of assault at Goldsmith’s home around that time.
Goldsmith said media coverage had presented an untrue narrative and exposed her to online hatred and abuse.
She said Berki came to her house on June 7, 2014, to give Brand a massage but that Brand decided he no longer wanted one and asked her to leave. According to Goldsmith, she was present for the whole visit and saw nothing untoward.
Goldsmith said Berki later told police that Brand pushed her in the back as she left and that she was “attacked” by Goldsmith’s dog, which Berki described in her police statement as the dog licking her face.
Goldsmith said she provided CCTV footage and that police concluded there was no case to answer and that no criminal offense had been committed.
Goldsmith said Berki then sold untrue stories to tabloids and carried out a campaign of antisemitic and threatening abuse against her online and by email.
She said she hopes her post will clarify speculation and that she is “glad and relieved that Russell Brand has finally faced justice.”
The court heard victim impact statements before the sentencing. One victim said she was left traumatized and afraid of giving off signals that could be misread, and that she felt physically sick seeing Brand in the media. “A leopard may change its spots, but it’s still a leopard,” she said.
The trial and conviction have prompted questions across the industry over how Brand went unreported for so long. Last week, Jack Bayles, head of comedy at independent TV production company Various Artists Ltd., was asked to step back from his producing role.
Bayles, a former associate of Brand, is accused of watching and laughing while Brand sexually assaulted a woman. He has worked on “I May Destroy You” and “Such Brave Girls.”
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