Russell Brand admitted that he once slept with a 16-year-old girl when he was 30.
“The plain fact of it is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom, where I’m from, the age of consent is 16. And I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30,” Brand, 50, told The Megyn Kelly Show in an episode posted on Wednesday, April 22. “When I was 30, I was a very different person. I was a lot younger, and I was an immature 30-year-old.”
As Brand referenced, the age of consent in the U.K. was 16 in 2006 and remains so to this day.
The Rock of Ages actor promoted his new book How to Become a Christian in 7 Days — about his religious conversion — during his discussion with host Megyn Kelly while also delving into the myriad of misconduct allegations levied against him.
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A woman referred to only as “Alice” told The Sunday Times in September 2023 that Brand was emotionally and sexually abusive to her in 2006, when she was 16 and he was 30.
Alice allegedly reported the behavior to Brand’s agent, who advised her to contact the comedian’s attorney. Per Alice, Brand’s lawyer denied the allegation and took no action.
Brand acknowledged on The Megyn Kelly Show that, while his relationship with a 16 year old in 2006 was not illegal under U.K. law, there were significant moral implications.
“There is a strong power differential, as there is when you’re a famous man that has the ability to attract women that I did at that time, I think involves exploitation,” he said. “I think it is exploitative. I recognize that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish, and I did not apply enough consideration — barely any, I suppose really — to how that sex was affecting other people.”
Brand took issue with the perception of his behavior at the time, claiming he was seeing “powerful professional women” as well as “waitresses and strippers and fans and people.”
“What fame gave me and what my addiction fueled was the opportunity for endless consent, which led me to be a hedonist and a fool, and an exploiter of women, and that is wrong. And that is something that needs to be redeemed and addressed and atoned for,” he argued. “What I’m obviously not only querying, but violently or aggressively or assertively opposing, is the idea that this is a judicial criminal matter where consent was overridden.”
Brand insisted that “consent was directed” in every sexual encounter he has ever had.
“That’s what being famous and being, if I may say, forgive me, charismatic affords you is the ability to direct consent. That doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s actually not right,” he declared. “It’s wrong. It’s a sin. It’s an expression of selfishness and false idolatry.”
The comedian added, “We’re not the final say on what’s right and wrong. God is the final say.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Brand’s representatives for comment.
Brand has faced sexual assault, rape and emotional abuse allegations from multiple women who say the misconduct occurred between 1999 and 2013. Several of their accusations were first explored in Channel 4’s 2023 documentary Russell Brand: In Plain Sight.
In April 2025, Brand was charged in the U.K. with rape, sexual assault and indecent assault based on allegations from four different women between 1999 and 2005 while two more counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault were later added. (Brand has pleaded not guilty.)
“We have today authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Russell Brand with a number of sexual offenses,” the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on April 4, 2025. “We carefully reviewed the evidence after a police investigation into allegations made following the broadcast of a Channel 4, Sunday Times and Times investigation in September 2023. We have concluded that Russell Brand should be charged with offenses including rape, sexual assault and indecent assault.”
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The CPS clarified, “These relate to reported non-recent offences between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.”
Brand has previously suggested that he was targeted as part of a media conspiracy due to his shift towards right-wing politics.
“I don’t mind [the media] using my books and my stand-up to talk about my promiscuous, consensual conduct in the past. What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations,” Brand said in a YouTube video in April 2025. “Also, it’s worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently, in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack.”
His trial is expected to begin in October at Southwark Crown Court in London.
If you have experienced sexual assault, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 for confidential support.
