Netflix's 'Russell Brand: Open Secret' Maps a Career Built on an Open Joke

By Daniel Okafor

Four days after a London judge sentenced Russell Brand to more than 10 years in prison for rape and sexual assault, Netflix released "Russell Brand: Open Secret." The 80-minute documentary arrived Friday, hours after The Times of London published fresh accusations from six more women.

The film traces the crimes behind Brand's downfall alongside his rise to fame in the early 2000s and his shape-shifting career. It features on-camera interviews with former partners and with the journalists whose investigations helped trigger the police inquiry and the trial.

What started the journalists' investigation?

Public accusations against Brand first appeared in September 2023, when The Times of London and other British outlets published an investigation including a woman saying Brand had raped her.

In the Netflix film, Rosamund Urwin, the article's lead reporter, says she began investigating Brand in January 2019. Her trigger: comedians had been discussing him publicly, some ending their shows by saying, essentially, "Russell Brand's a rapist." When the punchline circulates for a decade, it stops being a joke.

Did Brand hide his behavior?

Barely. Charlotte Wace, another Times of London reporter on the investigation, recalls reading Brand's books, in which he documented his sex addiction and episodes such as spitting on a prostitute's face.

"What kind of man was I, treating women in this way?" Brand writes in his 2010 memoir, "Booky Wook 2." "If this is what I'm telling you, can you imagine what's being left out?" Wace says she kept that quote in mind throughout her reporting.

The film also covers Brand's difficult relationship with his father, Ronald Brand, including home-video footage of early stand-up routines, stark videos of drug use, and a TV clip of father and son fighting in a boxing ring. According to Brand's books, when Brand was 17, his father took him to Thailand, where both had sex with prostitutes, sometimes in the same room. The documentary shows the two reminiscing about that trip.

How did Britain's 'Noughties' culture help him?

The film gives non-British viewers a tour of early-2000s Britain, when tabloid newspapers celebrated sexual promiscuity — one awarded Brand its "shagger of the year" prize three years running. It was the era of "lads" and "ladettes" (British slang for young women who acted as boorishly as their male counterparts).

Amanda Alguero Alejos, one of Brand's former girlfriends, says Brand became a sex addict during this period — and after that became "totally different."

What did the former girlfriends say?

Jordan Martin, another former girlfriend, self-published an anonymous 2014 memoir recounting an assault by a barely disguised man called "Randall Grand." In the film, Martin says that passage retold an episode in which, after an argument, Brand forced a finger inside her and walked away without a word.

Martin also recalls dating Brand during the filming of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," the 2008 movie that made him famous in the United States. She says Brand asked her to accompany him to Hawaii "to stop him from trying it on with people on set." It didn't work, she says — he had sex with a yoga teacher.

Martin describes a controlling relationship: Brand objected to her sunbathing, told her she dressed "like an attention-seeking tart," and watched over her while making her brush her teeth until her gums bled. Urwin says rumors about Brand's behavior were swirling around Hollywood "certainly by 2013."

Who else appears in the film's orbit?

The documentary includes video of Brand on a private plane with Sean Combs, in which the disgraced music mogul calls Brand his "new best friend" and asks him to provide "the whores" during a trip to Las Vegas. "I'm not a misogynist — I'm against that kind of language," Brand replies. "I like to think of them as damsels."

It also shows a radio clip of Brand chatting with David Walliams, the British comedian accused this week of exploiting his celebrity to prey on women and teenagers as young as 15. Walliams has denied grooming women or having sexual contact with a 15-year-old.

What are the new accusations?

Hours before the release, The Times of London published accusations from six women. One says that in 2015 Brand tried to drag her into a bathroom, leaving her frightened he would sexually assault her.

In the film, an actor portrays one anonymous woman from that new investigation. She says that while dating Brand, he had sex with her without a condom despite her repeated pleas to stop. "I tried to kick him off," she says. "He just pinned my hands back behind my head, and he just forced himself into me."

The Times said it put all new accusations to Brand's lawyer; he initially asked for more time, then stopped responding. Brand testified in court that all his past sexual encounters were consensual. The film's timing — prison sentence on Monday, documentary on Friday — ensures the record and the verdict now travel together.