He’s the crazy dressing, androgynous, loud-mouthed lad from Essex, but love him or loath him, Russell Brand has gone from lowly TV presenter to worldwide phenomenon in a matter of years. It’s no secret that the comedian has had his problems; fighting addictions to sex, alcohol and drugs as well as personal battles with depression brought on by sexual abuse and an unhappy childhood.
It wasn’t long ago that Brand quit the BBC after being suspended, along with Jonathan Ross, for prank calling actor Andrew Sachs. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise and the star flew across the pond to avoid the scathing UK media and begin his accent to Hollywood ‘royalty’. Brand now has a best selling autobiography under his belt, with his second in the pipeline as well as a plethora of films in development or pre-production; sell out tours and a famous fiancée. Things really have turned around for this once flailing performer.
Russell’s unique brand (pardon the pun) of comedy and anarchic behaviour has helped him to stay in the limelight, however this desheveled look is more preened than he’d like us to think. He’s more Prada than Primark these days. Whatever you think of this bizarre character, it seems that Hollywood loves him and the British press are defrosting. Credit where credit’s due, he has cleaned up his act, is in a committed relationship and working extremely hard on his career. It’s hard to fault anyone for that.
He didn’t “prank call Andrew Sachs” – even the so-called intelligent press misrepresent the incident. Andrew Sachs had agreed to do an interview for Russell Brand’s radio show but failed to pick up the phone as scheduled. Jonathan Ross blurted out on Sach’s answerphone that Brand had slept with Sach’s granddaughter. Russell Brand made at least four phone calls apologising. It got out of hand, but Brand did NOT phone up in order to boast about it – the intention was to skirt around the subject without mentioning it…the general reporting on this makes me wonder what else gets distorted by the press, particularly the tabloids. But the gist of this article is correct – it didn’t damage Brand’s career.